Woodstock on a sunny Saturday in midsummer, crowded as you please. Away – to another corner of my country existence. Up in farthest Catskill wilderness sits the village of Fleischmanns, notable for its Hasidim, some so extreme they regard themselves as at war with that hotbed of liberalism, Israel. En route through the village to Hog Mountain Road, where I rehearse our upcoming Beethoven play – its premiere 5 days away now – with Maestro Kolb, I pass many Hasids with their Sunday hatbox-shaped fur hats. Incongruities everywhere – America’s signature. Nearby Belleayre, with its sought-after ski runs, has been the focus of a bitter war of its own: to develop a huge resort there, or not. I find myself in complete accord with Justin Kolb and his wife, who used to be of the ‘against’ party, fearing tourist invasions in such a sweetly remote place; now, like them, I see it differently – especially after my 10,000-mile ride around boarded-up America, much of it sweetly remote but also dying. As the supporters of the resort scheme point out, it will of course bring work where hardly any now exists. Is it worth the price of resort vulgarity, to employ young local couples and enable them to buy a house, where now all available property belongs to those who can now afford it: city folk purchasing second homes? Answer: yes, it’s worth the price.

As I return to busy Woodstock, I pass the village of Big Indian, named for a 7-foot-tall Munsee Indian named Winneesook, who helped a local girl called Gertrude escape a marriage to one Joseph Bundy, whom she did not love. She loved Winneesook. The tale ends tragically with Winneesook shot by Bundy. We remember the big Indian, though, as we pass this sculpture beside the road.

My other NYC. An unfailing routine: every Wednesday, after breakfasting at Columbus Circle with Linda Langton, my agent, and her dog, Princess, I proceed to the streets of the Upper West Side – empty as in a post-apocalyptic movie, on a weekday mid-morning – to work with my darling composer, Broadway’s Jimmy Roberts, with whom I’m working on my Hollywood musical. ‘Rabinowicz!’ I greet him (his real name) when he opens his apartment door. ‘Harisiewicz!’ he replies as we embrace. (In truth his Jews are Russian, mine Polish, but we adapt the names to our fancy.)

We work for 2 hours and I emerge again into the elegant calm of 103rd Street, its brownstones, its fanciful, even Babylonian touches.

Then it’s Brooklyn once more. In ‘Tar-jhay’ I hear a lady mourn the absence of sardines. I answer about the lack of cans of tuna in olive oil. She is a darkish-skinned, squat woman; her name is Victoria Red Sky; we start to talk; ‘What part of England?’ she asks, before I’ve said more than 10 words. We discover that her mother came from Lancashire, as did my father. And this is only the beginning. ‘You remind me of Rex Harrison,’ she ventures. ‘My father,’ I explain. It turns out that her mother was Jean Simmons’ stand-in, in movies.

Simmons hated her stand-in because, Victoria says, Victoria’s mother, who she said looked exactly like Vivien Leigh, was more beautiful than Jean Simmons. (Herself, I shrank from pointing out, astonishingly beautiful.) Victoria’s mother was pals with Peter Ustinov, Ralph Richardson, James Robertson Justice, John Mills – and other actors of the period whom I knew well in my childhood. (Ustinov was in love with my mother; I with Mills’ elder daughter.) All this in the Flatbush Avenue Target. We exchange phone numbers, and go our way, wondering at these strange cross-threads in the weave of life.

A darker day. (But the pool is clear! Not clean – though getting there with the help of a new ‘pool shark’ automatic cleaner – but clear, after further anti-phosphate blitzkrieg.) Darker weather; and sadly we made the decision to postpone the upcoming late-summer premiere of my play about the Emperor Nero – in it he acquires a movie camera and sets about filming his life and crimes, using his entourage and a screenplay by Seneca the Younger – because we’ve lost the services of our wonderful stage manager, Athena, who is having a much-needed hip operation. She is and was our rock, and a demanding show with 20 actors in it isn’t something we want to tackle without her. But soon, hopefully; before too long.

Meanwhile I have another premiere, of my play about Beethoven, in 12 days’ time, at the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice. This features a Beethoven piano virtuoso, Justin Kolb, playing Beethoven the man and – at the piano – the pianist, plus myself as his doctor. The piece was sparked when Justin lent me a book about Beethoven’s (many) ailments. This kind of thing is irresistible, as if one were to discover that Socrates was obsessed with fishing. Lost Socratic dialogues (‘The One That Got Away’) spring helplessly to mind, along with skeptical pupils questioning Socrates’ claims, and Socrates questioning the nature of reality, using fishermen’s tales. Similarly, Beethoven as hypochondriac. Genius seen from a new angle is too delicious. And it happens, as the clinching inspiration, that Justin – in a wig – looks exactly like Beethoven….