There is a long tradition of text-based drama in Britain dating back to Shakespeare and beyond. What the term implies is a theatre based on the primacy of language and an exploration of its endless ambiguities and ironies. Obviously that does not exclude physical action or visual signifiers. But what it does mean is a basic acceptance of the view that language - whether poetry, prose or a combination of the two - is the subtlest means of exploring both situation and character.

Michael Billington, The Guardian