A Play Is Fiction And Fiction Is

I Stopped Acting When I Was About Nineteen, Twenty, When I Got Thrown Out Of College. I Did Act For About Ten Years. I Don't Know. I Suspect I'm Still A Reasonably Good Actor, But I Don't Really Know That I Want To Get On The Stage Again ... And Having To Say All Those Boring Words By Me Over And Over Again ... I Don't Know If I Want To Do That. Also, I Like A Certain Amount Of Freedom Of Movement, And If You're Acting, You're Stuck In One Place For A Long Time. Having Said That, I Will Probably Be Onstage Next Fall.

The Notion That Women Are Less Aesthetically Profound And Innovative Than Men--just Not Very Important, If You Know What I Mean--doubtless Spreads Back To Our Beginnings As Upright Animals: The Males Hunted And Killed For The Family While The Females Stayed Home In The Cave And Tended The Strange Little Creatures They Were Giving Birth To.

A Rather Ugly Thing Starts Happening: The Playwright Finds Himself Knocked Down For Works That Quite Often Are Just As Good Or Better Than The Works He's Been Praised For Previously. And A Lot Of Playwrights Become Confused By This And They Start Doing Imitations Of What They've Done Before, Or They Try To Do Something Entirely Different, In Which Case They Get Accused By The Same Critics Of Not Doing What They Used To Do So Well.

I Think I Was Probably Wondering, Having Looked At Human Beings For A Long Time, Wondering If Evolution Ever Took Place. And I Still Have My Doubts.

When You Write A Play, You Make A Set Of Assumptions -- That You Have Something To Say, That You Know How To Say It, That Its Worth Saying, And That Maybe Someone Will Come Along For The Ride.