In a well-known photograph of a group of English "New Wave" playwrights, circa 1958, Harold Pinter looks quizzically at N. F. Simpson, who stares fixedly off to his left, while Arnold Wesker, his hand on Simpson's shoulder, looks down at Pinter's nose; Bernard Kops watches Wesker from the corners of his eyes, while David Campton gazes down at John Mortimer's cheek; and Mortimer looks across Pinter's profile toward Simpson. The only man not involved in this network of mutual gazes is Errol John, who seems to be staring at the only woman in the picture, Ann Jellicoe. She, in turn, is alone in looking out at the camera, on which she fixes a gaze of what seems to be humorous disbelief. In retrospect, the composition seems emblematic of Jellicoe's position as a pioneering woman playwright and director in British theater during the second half of the twentieth century: unusual...