SG: No, but do you think that’s politics?
CS: (Laughing) Or do you think that’s the standard of the plays themselves?
SG: I think any play that sets out to do a “state of the nation” accounting is doomed to six weeks somewhere or other. Or ought to be.
CS: I quite agree. This is partly what you see theatre doing, I think. This book by Michael Billington seems to say that the main thing about a play isn’t that it’s got characters you’ll become concerned about, but that it has certain points to make. And I have great respect for him because he’s been doing the job for a long time but it’s absolutely not the way I’d do it.
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