Here's The Thing About Politics: It's Not

As A Playwright, You Are A Torturer Of Actors And Of The Audience As Well. You Inflict Things On People.

I Could Give You Absolutely Sterling Advice On How To Avoid Writing, How When You Run Out Of Things To Do Other Than Going To Your Desk And Writing, When Every Closet Is Reorganized And You've Called Your Oldest Living Relative Twice In One Day To See What She's Up To And There Isn't An Unanswered E-mail Left On Your Computer Or You Simply Can't Bear To Answer Another One And There Is No Dignity, Not A Drop Left, In Any Further Evasion Of The Task At Hand, Namely Writing, Well, You Can Always Ask Your Dentist For A Root Canal Or Have An Accident In The Bathtub Instead.

I Think That It's Worthwhile To Explore The Ways In Which You Write The Person That's Writing Your Plays As Opposed To Simply Assuming That It's All A Natural Process And There's No Design In It. Because Your Public Persona Is Designed, To A Certain Extent, And You Can Have Fun And Profit At Various Times Doing That.

Who Knows Better Than Artists How Much Ugliness There Is On The Way To Beauty, How Many Ghastly, Mortifying Missteps, How Many Days Of Granitic Blockheadedness And Dismaying Ineptitude There Is On The Way To Accomplishment, How Partial All Accomplishment Is, How Incomplete?

When I Was Younger, I Used To Be Very Impatient With Anyone Who Wasn't Doing Overtly Political Work. I've Since Come To Feel That Some Writers Have An Appetite Or A Need For The Political, For Political Discourse, For Historical Political Subjects.