My plays have been performed before children, workers, and peasants, and they have well understood the meaning of my theatre. What is needed for people to watch my theatre is a freshness and openness of mind.
Interpretation
Eugene Ionesco emphasizes the importance of openness and fresh perspectives for audiences to truly understand and appreciate theatre.
In this quote, Eugene Ionesco highlights that his plays resonate with various demographics, including children and workers, indicating that great art is accessible regardless of social status. He asserts that a key requirement for viewers to grasp the essence of his theatre is a willingness to approach it with a fresh and open mind, suggesting that preconceived notions can hinder one's appreciation of art.
In practice
In a discussion about the accessibility of theatre to all audience types.
Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.
Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.
No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.
Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.
Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings.
The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.
I shall, in due time, be a Poet.
I love beauty. But I like the beauty accidentally, not dished up, served up on a platter.
I have never heard a dancer asking for advice about how to stay focused on her footwork, or a painter complaining about the dull day-to-day task of painting. What task worth doing isn't worth daily effort? Do you think Michelangelo was having fun the whole time he was on his back painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling?
When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.
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