Already familiar with When Did You Last See My Mother?, Total Eclipse and The Philanthropist, this book spine called out from off of the shelf of J.W.Doull's as a so-called "no-brainer". It cost me $6.50, second-hand, in the handsome 1991 Faber and Faber edition. White Chameleon boasts an exquisite architecture, concludes with a final gesture so sure-handed and so effective as to reassert – for those who weren't already convinced – Christopher Hampton's skills and political conscience as a playwright. Passages of poetic prose change place with a deceptively grand political allegory, rooted in the Egyptian revolution of 1952. In what would qualify as a memory play, Hampton explores parallels between life and art, specifically his autobiographically inspired recollections against his playwright's craft; moreover, he explores the microcosm in the macrocosm, or the way one household can reflect a nation, one character an entire people.

For me, reading plays continues to be a personal and professional delight. I am constantly discovering the world through the words of people who have written before me. I too often allow the barrage of e-mails and administrative duties of my theatre company to get in my way and distract me from my extreme delight in reading plays. I have been more successful recently in taking an hour a morning – sometimes sitting in the sunny cove where we have our washer and dryer, sometimes in our bathtub that doesn't drain properly. Reclaiming this time, this privilege for pleasure, allows me to pretend I am still in school, working my way through prescribed reading lists, imagining course titles as I go. "20th Century Gay Plays and Playwrights." "Symbol and Structure in Dramatic Writing." "The Poetry and Politics of Christopher Hampton." I highly recommend it.

There are two ways to live your life: as if you're writing the play or as if the play's already written. I chose a job for which I am required to read scripts, study scores and work with imaginative and creative people. Plays such as White Chameleon inspire me to think clearly, refine relentlessly and embrace the philosophical complexities of everyday life. For in these complexities lie the simple truths.