Theatre Quotes - Page 23

Go to the Martin Beck Theatre and watch Katherine Hepburn run the gamut of emotions from A to B.

To shut yourself from history is to shut yourself off from say music or painting or the theatre, literature for the rest of your life. It would be to cheat yourself of the pleasures of life.

Learning to write for the theatre is learning to be a human being, because the theatre by its very nature makes you deal with other human beings.

I'm a very private person, so I didn't like this idea of tweeting about me. And then I realized, 'Oh, this is actually a brilliant device in terms of interacting with the fans'. It's a lovely way to just get back, to thank the fans for watching the show. And to live tweet is kind of like getting the rewards of doing live theatre.

The great thing about London is the little pockets of culture, like Hackney, which has its panto and its great community. Of course there's also the West End with its brilliant theatres and thriving tourism but to also have areas like Hackney which are so community based but not exclusive, that remind you that those surrounding you are the most important, is what makes London what it is.

I first came to London as a musician, and when my group broke up, I did 'Guys and Dolls' at the Watford Palace theatre. After that, Ned Sherrin found me and brought me to the West End to do one of his shows. The work went from strength to strength, so I thought: 'This is where the world wants me; I'll stay.

A good actor makes clear the meaning of the words. A better actor gives also the emotion of the part. The best actor adds emotion of which the character is unconscious.

I'm looking forward to locking swords with Douglas Henshall and working against the stunning backdrop of Shetland. I came to Scotland a lot in the '70s and '80s in various theatre productions and of course to film Hallam Foe but this is the furthest I've ever been.

Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.

I have a large personal collection of pictures. For every project, I choose images. Usually I don't do this until I've done an extensive script breakdown and distilled the text down to poetic form. I have to plant enough seeds so that there will be vibration.

Theatre is so much fun because you do theatre and you have a month of working it out on your own, and then a month of rehearsal, so by the time you get to stage I know where I'm failing and I know where I'm succeeding and your boundaries are pretty concrete.

I'd like more kids to go and see theatre because it really is amazing.

I almost failed drama at school. I hated it. It was all about the history of theatre.

When you come into a movie theatre, there are no windows, you don't hear the sound outside and you're ready for fantasy.

I love theatre, and you learn too much as an actor and enjoy too much of it not to want to go back a lot.

Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?

I strive for perfection, but of course it can never be perfect. I'm never satisfied at the end of a performance. But the great thing about live theatre is that every night you get another chance to get it right.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.

Without class differences, England would cease to be the living theatre it is.

There is something so great about film and television where you can convey an emotion in the blink of an eye which you would perhaps not be able to do to the back row of a theatre, like over 1000 seats, and there is something so subtle and beautiful about that too.

I'd like to think that we strive in film and theatre to tell great stories, and I believe in the power of storytelling in our culture.

The regrets in the theatre have always been the shows that you know ought to have worked but for one reason or another haven't.

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.

What's this thing that gets between us and Shakespeare?

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.