On the other hand, when writing a play, I find it important to stay quite clear of some other plays and writings that have addressed the same issues. Given the themes of The Elf King, I am keeping at arm’s length other plays that rise to similar challenges, such as Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967), about parents raising a handicapped child, and David Rudkin’s Ashes (1974), about a couple trying to conceive. The problems I set myself in writing a play require my own solutions — and while I’m curious to read these plays again to rediscover their tactics, best to keep them aside for now and struggle through the forest myself.

The same applies to work that I haven’t seen or read before. Tomorrow, Lars von Trier’s Melancholia opens in New York, and much as I’d like to see it, again I shall keep it at arm’s length too. After the events of the last few days, I find it unlikely that the Academy Awards voters will choose to nominate for best director a man who says, even in jest, “Okay, I’m a Nazi,” but that is a foolish man talking, and not the art, and it wouldn’t be the first time that foolish people created great art. That doesn’t prevent me, however, from taking a peek now and then; below are the disturbing but sublime final few minutes from Melancholia. Beauty is beauty, however difficult to watch, and one should welcome it. (The Russian dubbing subsides after the first 15 seconds or so, and the remainder of the film plays out without dialogue.) For those who need one, a spoiler alert: One day, the world ends.