Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Interpretation
Theatre presents numerous challenges that can lead to failure, yet it remains an engaging art form.
This quote by Tom Stoppard highlights the inherent challenges in theatrical productions, suggesting that the journey of creating art is fraught with difficulties and potential failures. Despite these obstacles, the excitement and immediacy of theatre draw people in, emphasizing both the risks and rewards of artistic expression.
In practice
During a speech at a drama festival, one might say, 'As Tom Stoppard once noted, theatre is filled with insurmountable obstacles, reminding us of the resilience required in the arts.'
Love is - OK, it's 20 things, but it isn't 19. And I think that love reaches for something which is very, very deep in us and is very easily obscured, and is also very easily denied, which is the instinct towards the other person, other than toward the self.
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
I once did a radio program with a famous materialist, that is to say a scientist who believed that absolutely everything was physical and that all emotions were reductive to little electrical impulses in your neurons. And I found that I didn't believe that. But what the emotions really are, I don't have an alternative theory.
One of the reasons why there are so many versions of Chekhov is that translations date in a way that the original doesn't; translations seem to be of their time.
A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security.
Chekhov directors and Chekhov actors love working on his plays because there seems to be no end to what you can find out about the micro-narrative when you're investigating a text.
I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.
It's a bit naff, but there is something exciting about pulling a bit of pottery out of the ground that's 2,000 years old.
And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.
This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation ecstasy.
The audience will find the artist who matches their interests. If you're not being true to yourself, your audience can't find you, because there's a wall up between who you are and who they're seeing.
When you take something that's inert, and through motion, give it life, make it appear to be alive, living, breathing thinking and having emotions, that's animation. But when you take something that's live-action, and move a part of it, that's a special effect.
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