one hundred essays I don't have time to write*

*Please consider these essays as starting points. Consider them starting points for someone else to finish.
 

71. The Necessary

What seems like the least necessary thing in your play might be the most necessary thing in your play. What seems like the most necessary thing in your play might be the least necessary thing in your play. (Maurice Maeterlinck will elaborate on this point—see his book The Treasure of the Humble). Be suspicious of an expert who tells you to cut out a seemingly unnecessary moment in your play that is complete unto itself as a moment. The soul of your play might reside there, quietly, inconspicuously, glorying in its very unnecessaryness, shining forth in its lack of necessity to be. And remember that the word “expert” was invented after the Renaissance, a time when plays gloried and sallied forth in all their beautiful ignorance.

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