In the beginning, music and dance were inseparable. Gradually, music became seen as a sedentary art: a matter for the ears not the eyes, in which the body played no part. But it does play a part: that is why we still go to...

Writing came to me late. I was 40 when I began to teach myself the arachnoid knack of spinning words. My equipment consisted of my discipline -- surgery -- a relish for language, and a pen. Hardly reason to take off my hospital mask,...

If one could complain about [Five Finger Exercise] (or express doubt at all) it would be on two counts. The first is perhaps largely temporary: the language of the younger characters is full of period slang which has got far enough back to sound dated without as yet taking on a period charm, and, worse, it is the superficial expression of a relationship which has too much heavy whimsy for comfort…. The other cause for complaint may also be rather subjective: it is that, in a period of unmistakably in...

[The] most interesting quality of [Peter Shaffer's] work is its impersonality. His work has all the classic qualities of the traditional dramatist—cast-iron construction, a coherent and well-plotted story to tell, solid, realistic characterization, extreme fluency in the composition of lively, speakable, exactly placed dialogue—but ultimately he emerges in it as mysterious and impalpable as Walter, the central character of Five Finger Exercise, who, if he is the hero, must be one of the...

Almost nothing about Shaffer's future could have been predicted from Five Finger Exercise, which derives much of its basic plot from Turgenev's A Month in the Country but remains much more pedestrian, with nothing like the same sensitivity to atmosphere or the same penetration below the surface of character, though the adolescent son, with whom Shaffer can empathize most easily, emerges in greater depth than the others. Still, it is an impressively solid piece of theatrical craftsmanship, with...