Curtmantle

Excerpt from Curtmantle

Between these two dates there is a seething cauldron Of events, con?icts, purposes, errors, brilliance, human endurance, and human suffering, which could provide, in those thirty-hye years, all that we need for a lifetime's study and contemplation of man kind. NO single play could contain more than a splash from the brew. What to use and what to lose out of this feverish concentra tion of life? How far should fidelity to historical events be sacrificed to suit the theatre? If a playwright is rash enough to treat real events at all, he has to accept a double responsibility: to drag out Of the sea Of detail a story simple enough to be understood by people who knew nothing about it before; and to do so without distorting the material he has chosen to use. Otherwise let him invent his characters, let him 'go to Ruritania for his history.