JF: I like to see you playing around with style like that because I hadn’t seen that stylistically from you before. I know that you read a lot and you’re interested in philosophy, so I’m curious, are there any books that influenced this play? MG: Girard’s The Scapegoat was a big part of the conception of the play. Even just traditional myth structures in which a king is sacrificed, such as The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer or Roberto Calasso’s The Ruin of Kasch. In the relationship between Terry and Michael, Terry is kind of symbolically killed in the first part of the play. His birthday party is lame, he’s broken, he goes to Stockholm, rumors are spreading, and he feels out of control. A younger, hotter man crashes at his apartment while he’s gone, has parties and sex, and becomes the new king. But Michael also senses that if he lingers too long, he’ll become the sacrificial object as well.