The stages that Ayckbourn has worked on have had a profound effect on the plays that he has written. The first theatre was a temporary structure in a large high-ceilinged room above a library. Seating was in tiered blocks against three of the walls and another smaller block of seats was sandwiched between the doors on the fourth. The stage was square with access to the acting area available only through the room's two doors, both located on the same side of the square.

This meant that action across the stage was inhibited. Entering by one door and exiting by the only other tends to keep the actor hugging the edge of the area. Actors would feel much more comfortable heading for the central acting space, and playing there. The result is that the early Ayckbourn plays are plays of arrival and departure. They are set in domestic environments with simple entrances and exits. This gives them a stability of action. The characters interact with each other in what is frequently a domestic interior with escape only into the offstage hall or kitchen. This limitation served the young Alan Ayckbourn well. So many of his earliest plays are driven by the claustrophobia of the sitting room or small garden. Once a character enters into the social area, they have to cope as best they can no matter what trap is sprung there. This is the dramatic imperative of plays such as Relatively Speaking, Absent Friends, and The Norman Conquests. Absurd Person Singular has a different trap in each act with the Christmas social gathering capturing the guests every year. Of course Ayckbourn is inventive enough to disguise the limitations with plays such as Bedroom Farce. He divides the stage into three bedrooms but there is still the implied imprisoning of the protagonists in each area by social obligation. With the limited opportunity to exit, a wild cannon such as Trevor in Bedroom Farce or Norman in The Norman Conquests can impose dreadful obligations when, having arrived, they have no imperative to leave. In plays written for the Library Theatre you enter into the space and you depart. There is almost no opportunity to pass through.