As fascinated as I was by words on paper, it was matched by my fascination with words in people's mouths. The spoken word. And that is the world of theatre.

From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.

I've always sensed for myself an obligation to bear witness to my time.

A very close friend of mine keeps reminding me that since about the age of 50, I've been saying, 'I'm finished. I haven't got another one in me.' But somehow you do.

Life is just a plain bloody mess, that's all. And people are fools.

The things that converge in the writing of a play come from a complex of motives, a genesis shrouded in a certain kind of mystery.

Theater will never, and never has, gotten audiences like film. But theater goes to work on society in a different and more subversive way.