THEATRE QUOTES
quotations about theatre
It is a lazy public which promotes a slothful and irresponsible theater.
EDWARD ALBEE
"Which Theater Is the Absurd One?", 1962
When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world." If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
DAVID MAMET
Three Uses of the Knife
Of course we all come to the theatre with baggage. The baggage of our daily lives, the baggage of our problems, the baggage of our tragedies, the baggage of being tired. It doesn't matter what age you are. But if our hearts get opened and released -- well that is what theatre can do, and does sometimes, and everyone is thankful when that happens.
VANESSA REDGRAVE
attributed, The Redgraves: A Family Epic
To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.
SIMON CALLOW
Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World
Theatre is a mirror, a sharp reflection of society.
YASMINA REZA
The Observer, January 21, 2012
Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good.
TERRENCE MANN
attributed, IMDb
I think the theatre is as essential to civilization as safe, pure water.
VANESSA REDGRAVE
attributed, The Redgraves: A Family Epic
The true theater, because it moves and makes use of living instruments, continues to stir up shadows where life has never ceased to grope its way.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
preface, The Theater and Its Double
Any play that makes an audience think out of the box, that makes connections to life and names our pain and by doing so makes our pain subject to thinking and the process of understanding, is doing something inherently political. By promoting understanding, by putting experience in context, by making connections between the normal and the rational, theatre is an act of anti-terrorism. It stimulates courage and a survival spirit. In that sense of political, there are a lot of serious plays doing their work in the world.
JOHN LAHR
"Questions for John Lahr", The New Yorker, January 23, 2009
The most effective moments in the theatre are those that appeal to basic and commonplace emotions--love of woman, love of home, love of country, love of right, anger, jealousy, revenge, ambition, lust, and treachery.
CLAYTON HAMILTON
Theory of the Theatre
One must let the play happen to one; one must let the mind loose to respond as it will, to receive impressions, to sense rather than know, to gather rather than immediately understand.
EDWARD ALBEE
National Observer, April 5, 1965
A theatre, a literature, an artistic expression that does not speak for its own time has no relevance.
DARIO FO
Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1997
There is only one necessary condition for the emergence of a new theatre, that the stage and auditorium should be open to the masses, should be able to contain a people and the actions of a people.
ROMAIN ROLLAND
The People's Theatre
The theater-goer in conventional dramatic theater says: Yes, I've felt that way, too. That's the way I am. That's life. That's the way it will always be. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is no escape for him. That's great art -- Everything is self-evident. I am made to cry with those who cry, and laugh with those who laugh. But the theater-goer in the epic theater says: I would never have thought that. You can't do that. That's very strange, practically unbelievable. That has to stop. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is an escape for him. That's great art -- nothing is self-evident. I am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.
BERTOLT BRECHT
On Theatre
If you want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, be an audience.
TALLULAH BANKHEAD
attributed, 20,000 Quips & Quotes
Life is difficult. People want to experience that from the safety of a comfortable seat.
JANET SUZMAN
"An audience with Dame Janet", The Jewish Chronicle, June 2, 2017
One of the first and most important things for a critic to learn is how to sleep undetected at the theatre.
WILLIAM ARCHER
attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Literary Quotations
I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost -- it's there and then it's gone.
MAGGIE SMITH
interview, The Guardian, November 19, 2004
The theatre is a tragic place, full of endings and partings and heartbreak. You dedicate yourself passionately to something, to a project, to people, to a family, you think of nothing else for weeks and months, then suddenly it's over, it's perpetual destruction, perpetual divorce, perpetual adieu.
IRIS MURDOCH
The Green Knight
What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Art of the Theatre