Green reflects on what he considers to be the overemotionalism of members of the Group Theater, a theater collective seeking to shape American stage production in the 1930s and 1940s. In a way, Green's comments are an indictment of the artist, a person with no lived experience trying to fake it for an audience. His description of a young actor learning to cut wood, however, seems to indicate his belief that even the most soft-handed actors can learn.