he said, "well, let's start at the beginning: "the opening line of the play, jesus h. christ! an't say that on the british stage." i said, "is it the 'h'?" "no. [laughter] you can't say jesus christ." and i said, "well, let's put that aside for a while, and i'll think about that one." then they went on to some others, like, there's a point in the first act of the play where george refers to martha's father, president of the university, and says to the guests, "she is his right ball, so to speak." they objected to "ball" as a slang term, and this really, really puzzled me. they said, "however, it will be all right if you say she is his right testicle." [laughter] i said, "but that doesn't scan. the rhythm is wrong there, so we can't do that." and on and on and on and on. they said, "well, we have to come back to jesus h. christ," and i was getting a little puzzled and annoyed by that point, so i said, as a joke, "well, how about mary h. magdalene?" [laughter] he thought and said, "yes, that would be lovely." and i knew there was not gonna be any real communication here. and so i