From scraps of information passed down to her, she imagined a biography of the grandmother she never knew. "I felt so distressed when I found her grave," recalls Redgrave. "This woman had no career. My grandfather was headmaster at the Royal Naval College so he got a plaque somewhere, but she had nothing. That set me off.

"In the original version, she didn't have her real name, but, when we knew we were coming to Manhattan Theatre Club, I thought she should have her own name, and that scared me. Then, I thought of a way of paralleling my own story with hers, and that's what we worked on. This is the first time I've done 'The Lynn Play' — that's what Joe [director Joseph Hardy] and I call it, bringing together the two stories. I think this is the way it's going to stay. I feel it's important that we all hold hands with the living and the dead. If we do that, they are remembered."

—Harry Haun