Well, when I was six years old I decided, not that I was going to be, but with my usual modesty, that I was a writer.

In the thirties a whole school of criticism bogged down intellectually in those agitprop, social-realistic days. A play had to be progressive. A number of plays by playwrights who were thought very highly of then - they were very bad playwrights - were highly praised because their themes were intellectually and politically proper. This intellectual morass is very dangerous, it seems to me. A form of censorship.

I said I was impressed, Martha. I'm beside myself with jealousy. What do you want me to do, throw up?

I write to find out what I'm talking about.

I don't pay much attention to how the plays relate thematically to each other. I think that's very dangerous to do, because in the theater one is self-conscious enough without planning ahead or wondering about the thematic relation from one play to the next. One hopes that one is developing, and writing interestingly, and that's where it should end, I think.

Dashed hopes and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested.

When one controls form, one doesn't do it with a stopwatch or a graph. One does it by sensing, again intuitively.