Whether we brought it here was in our control, and we just made the decision not to. I’m very, very conscious and hopefully sensitive about the fact that that play, if you were of a mind to, you could say there’s cultural appropriation going on here — and not just of one country but two countries, because I’m neither Chinese nor American. You do take on a responsibility when you write another culture. But we sort of have to be brave enough to try.

I’m shocked that anyone would think writing about America could even be cultural appropriation, because we export so much.

Bringing over our idea of an American photojournalist — I think there was a risk involved in it. If you wrote a play tomorrow that was about the English and came over with your American director, I might go, “Hang on a minute, you’ve got that a bit wrong.” So it’s a sticky area. But I know what you’re saying, because we’re all part of American culture in such a massive way. Half the play is written off me watching “All the President’s Men” and “His Girl Friday.”

You write really substantial women. Is that important to you?

Writing Rose and Hazel was an attempt to look at the psychology of older women with a kind of depth that they don’t normally get tended to with. We have a lot of illusion of evolution at the moment. The idea that if you just change the gender of a character — if you have a male paradigm and you just slot a female actor into it — that to me is not evolution. You’re still forming the world with male psychology. You’re still saying, “This is how the world works.”

The level it happens on a lot is those massive franchise movies. Does your protagonist have a singular aim that they are just following all the way through? Immediately you are telling a story which has been conceived in a masculine paradigm. The structure of “The Children” is a real attempt to unpick that a little bit. You don’t find out until quite late in the play why Rose is there. It’s not about someone coming in and going, within the first 10 minutes, “I’m here with a mission.” You don’t have to tell a story like that.

Does “Mosquitoes” feel to you related to “The Children”?

“Mosquitoes” was a commission from M.T.C. That’s how I originally had a relationship with them. It’s a Sloan commission, so the commission was to write a science play. I don’t have a scientific brain, so I don’t think I would have naturally gone there. For sure I think there’s probably a very slight umbilical cord connecting the plays.