In "The Calling of St. Matthew" (1599-1600) he fast-forwarded the action by 1,600 years, plunking the apostle in a pub and portraying a slice of tavern life that Caravaggio, no teetotaler, would have been familiar with.
In the wake of the recent Caurier-Leiser version for Welsh National, which effectively fast-forwarded the action from the time of Peter the Great to the equally brutal era of Stalin, Stein's handsome, sweeping vision of this mighty work deserves to cement its place in the repertoire as securely as those of its much-loved siblings.
I try to make each scene forward the action or complicate tension.
I wanted the children to drive forward the action and be changed by the process.
His big changes were to simplify the plot and, above all, to bring forward the action some two decades from the conformist early 50s to the permissive 70s.
"I think of the story like an orchestra with the violins and the brass at the front taking forward the action.
In the last chapter, he fast-forwards the action to 2009, to reveal the characters' fates and dramatise a poignant encounter between Thomas and a woman from Expo 58.
Like Nancy, she has her friends - chorus girl Lil, apprentice shop porter Billy, and East End runaway Joe - at her side, each of whom have a role to play in solving the mystery, but it is Sophie who drives forward the action.
But organisers decided to bring forward the action to capitalise on the momentum created by the students.
The airwaves belong to us, and Americans crave what they have become accustomed to: well-crafted, provocative, stimulating erotica with dialogue that either reveals character or forwards the action.
"The named plaintiffs would retain their claims and their ability to move forward in the action," Mr. Boutrous said.
