“In 21st-century America, playwriting cannot be thought of in earnest as a rival of screenwriting. In reality, it is more like a barnacle clinging to it. Indeed, the economic ruin of the playwriting profession is a 20th-century story, not a 21st-century one. It began in the 1920s, or thereabouts, with the rise of commercial motion pictures, and was more or less complete by the 1980s, with the introduction of cable TVs and VCRs.”