Until I went to see Children … I had no idea how conditioned I had become to modern play-writing. During the first couple of scenes four characters appeared: a Mother, her daughter, her son and the son's wife. Their relationships were made quite clear and they conversed about a straightforward situation … in a realistic setting…. Then the Mother suddenly made a remark about erosion: in time, she said, the garden and then the house would slide into the sea.

'Aha!' I thought to myself. 'I've got it! These are not real people at all, nor is that a real house. This is a Symbolic Play, and the people and the house represent the Condition of Presentday America.' But the play continued, the characters went on behaving like real people, and the subject of erosion was not brought up again. Shortly the conversation turned towards Sex…. 'Aha!' I thought again…. But no. The play continued, the situation developed, and, although there was a little cuddling between the brother and his wife (his wife?), hardly a button was unfastened.

'Well,' I thought, 'there's only one course open now…. [Someone] is suddenly going to stop in mid-speech and say, "I'm sorry. I simply can't go on with this. It's a load of crap," whereupon the stage manager will come on and remonstrate. And then the whole thing is going to turn into a discussion about Watergate, or Northern Ireland, or Racialism, or Property Speculation (Yess, yes, that's it! Someone mentioned selling the house!!).' But, for God's sake, the play just went on…. 'Heavens!' I thought. 'Can it be? Can it possibly be? Is this that dear, forgotten, old-fashioned thing, a Good Play? I do believe it is. I do believe I am actually … watching a Good Play. I am not going to be bored, or baffled. I am not going to be preached at or bludgeoned over the head with statistics and propaganda. And I am not going to be shocked, brutalised, outraged or assaulted. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!' (p. 36)

Children is simply what it sets out to be: a soundly structured piece, absorbing, amusing, occasionally exciting and finally very moving, about the tensions of a middle-class American family on a July the Fourth week-end. It makes no breakthrough, it neither attacks the audience or seeks to justify itself, and I don't suppose it will give such critics as the swinging old gentleman on the Sunday Times much of a charge. In fact I would not claim that it is a great play, or even a very original one, since it explores territory which has already been fairly well trodden by, amongst others, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller and William Inge, more ambitiously and perhaps more memorably. But if anyone is still prepared to sit down calmly and enjoy what is, I repeat, a Good Play, then let him go to Children. (p. 37)