We Compensate Underplaying
Onstage – by Overplaying Reality²
Is it Better to Prevent a repetition of so
Much Sufferings – and Quit the Stage?³
The poor Player Struts & Frets their hour
Upon the Stage and then is heard No More⁴
For me, Tragedy’s most important Act is the
Sixth: the Raising the Dead from the Stage’s
Battlegrounds – the Straightening of Wigs and
Fancy gowns – Removing Knives from stricken
Breasts – Taking Nooses from Lifeless Necks –
Lining up among the Living to face the Audience⁵
Drama’s Vitallest Expression is the Common Day⁶
They who assume a Character that doesn’t Belong
To them Betray themselves by Overacting it⁷
Our Struggle is the Reverse of the Actor’s:
We seek not to Enter, but to Escape, a Part⁸
We’re Playing the Fools: Acting
The things we’re really Feeling⁹
The Acting is to the Actor &
Actress, not to the Audience¹⁰
¹ Franz Kafka tr. John Williams, The Trial
² Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
³ Hermann Hesse tr. Basil Creighton, Steppenwolf
⁴ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
⁵ Wisława Szymborska tr. Barańczak & Cavanagh, Theatre Impressions
⁶ Emily Dickinson, Drama’s Vitallest Expression
⁷ Aesop tr. Thomas James, The Ass in the Lion’s Den
⁸ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
⁹ Agatha Christie, N or M?
¹⁰ Walt Whitman, A Song of the Rolling Earth