Conor McPherson

“For me, the first production of a play is really an extension — or even a continuation — of the writing of the play because only when you see it coming to life can you really understand what it is. When you reach the end of that journey, sometimes your feeling is that there’s not a lot for me to discover. You’re also slightly disappointed, because you’ve seen it. When you’ve had an idea for something, and it’s a vague idea, of course the play is perfect. It hasn’t been tried; you’ve never seen it; nobody has seen it… and it’s perfect. When you get into it and you’re directing it, sometimes what you are trying to do is to solve all its problems. In a way you’ve wrecked your dream by making it real, which is not to say that it’s bad, but just that that particular process is at an end.”