Theatre Quotes - Page 37

• The noblest Digladiation is in the Theatre of ourselves.

  Thomas Browne

  Sir Thomas Browne, James Thomas Fields (1862). “Religio Medici: A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Urn-burial, and Other Papers”, p.205

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• I know what I am able and not able to do. Fashion? OK. Fashion... clothes in theatre, in an opera, in a concert - all that I love. To make a movie myself... no!

  Jean Paul Gaultier

  Fashion, Clothes, Opera

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• As for theatre, there's ups and downs to everything. Theatre is ephemeral. But that is part of its charm because you can always say the production was better than it was.

  Clive Barker

  Ephemeral, Charm, Ups & Downs

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• Is there anything more terrible than a "call"? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre are the two great centers for the propagation of platitudes.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Two, Conversation, Terrible

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• I go to the theatre expecting to have a good time. I want each play and performance to take me somewhere. Naturally, this doesn't always happen.

  John Lahr

  Play, Want, Good Times

  "Questions for John Lahr". www.newyorker.com. January 23, 2009.

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• A prose writer never sees a reader walk out of a book; for a playwright, it's another matter. An audience is an invaluable education. In my experience, theatre artists don't know what they've made until they've made it.

  John Lahr

  Book, Artist, Matter

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• In Britain, the theatre has traditionally been where the public goes to think about its past and debate its future. The formation of the National Theatre, at the Old Vic, near the South Bank, in 1963, institutionalized the symbolic importance of drama by giving it both a building and state funding.

  John Lahr

  Drama, Past, Thinking

  John Lahr (2015). “Joy Ride: Lives of the Theatricals”, p.408, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Theatre is a game of hide-and-seek. For both the hiders and the seekers, the thrill is in the discovery. When the rules of the game are too vague or too complicated, however, the audience can lose its urge to play; the prize no longer seems quite worth the hunt.

  John Lahr

  Discovery, Games, Play

  "The Human Circus" by John Lahr, www.newyorker.com. March 1, 2010.

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• If you're watching a film on your television, is it no longer a film because you're not watching it in a theatre? If you watch a TV show on your iPad, is it no longer a TV show? The device and the length are irrelevant; the labels are useless, except perhaps to agents and managers and lawyers, who use these labels to conduct business deals.

  Kevin Spacey

  Business Deals, Tv Shows, Ipads

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• This visible world is wonderfully to be delighted in, and highly to be esteemed, because it is the theatre of God's righteous Kingdom.

  Thomas Traherne

  World, Kingdoms, Righteous

  Thomas Traherne (2010). “Centuries of Meditations”, p.145, Cosimo, Inc.

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• It seems to me that you are solving a problem which goes beyond the limits of physiology in too simple a way. Physiology has realized its problem with fortitude, breaking man down into endless actions and counteractions and reducing him to a crossing, a vortex of reflex acts. Let it now permit sociology to restore him as a whole. Sociology will wrest man from the anatomical theatre and return him to history.

  Alexander Herzen

  Simple, Men, Vortex

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• I grew up in the theatre. It's where I got my start. Writing a television drama with theatrical dialogue about the theatre is beyond perfection.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Drama, Writing, Perfection

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• I feel like theatre gives me the grounding, and keeps me alive, basically. Film gives me the thrill, and it's like a one night stand. But I do enjoy being around people who love it so much.

  Marisa Tomei

  Night, People, Giving

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Best performance of the year: Aston Villa v. Milan, September 1994

  Alec Guinness

  Years, Villa, September

  Alec Guinness (2001). “A Commonplace Book”

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• Charity in the theatre usually begins and ends with people who have a play opening the week following one's own. Their unlikely benevolence is not so much a purity of heart as the knowledge that they face a firing line with rifles aimed in exactly the same direction.

  Moss Hart

  Heart, Play, People

  moss hart (1959). “act one”

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• The theatre breeds its own kind of cruelty, and its sadism takes on a keener edge since it can be enjoyed under the innocent guise of critical judgment.

  Moss Hart

  Sadism, Kind, Judgment

  moss hart (1959). “act one”

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• The frivolity with which all theatrical activity is conducted has one consoling feature-there are no rules of behavior that apply regularly to any part of the theatre.

  Moss Hart

  Behavior, Theater, Consoling

  moss hart (1959). “act one”

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• My phrase has always been that I am looking for the versatility of theatre in film. I think I have been quite lucky in that so far.

  Miranda Richardson

  Thinking, Lucky, Phrases

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• Theatre is about people, not buildings. Incalculable damage has been done to the expert talent a company needs - from wardrobe to lighting technicians.

  Edward T. Hall

  People, Experts, Needs

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• I was convinced that acting was for fools. I was on the stage when I was eight with my father, he was playing one of those Greek blind guys that sees things and warns people, whilst I was in a blue skirt. I think there were 5,000 people in the theatre, it was ridiculous.

  Rutger Hauer

  Father, Thinking, Eight

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• I was very interested in theatre, mostly in stage design. I did a little bit of acting.

  Jim Henson

  Design, Acting, Littles

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• My first interest was always music, and somehow that channelled itself into films and acting. I don't know what the natural transition of it was. I mean I acted a little bit when I was young and like any kid would in a community theatre.

  Andy Garcia

  Mean, Kids, Community Theatre

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• Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.

  Howard Barker

  Character, Achievement, Anxiety

  "Howard Barker: 'I don't care if you listen or not'". Interview with Maddy Costa, www.theguardian.com. October 01, 2012.

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• I am so far as I am aware not at all influenced by dramatists, expect for Shakespeare, who I have to say, it is impossible not to be influenced by if you hold language to be the major element of theatre.

  Howard Barker

  Elements, Impossible, Language

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• When I write, I am not giving a lecture, I am speculating on behavior. Sometimes this is dangerous, but it should be. As I say often, theatre is a dark place and we should keep the light out of it.

  Howard Barker

  Writing, Dark, Light

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