A good actor always sets you straight. If you've written a false moment and thought it was probably pretty great, the actor's gonna show you when he gets to that moment. They're the great test of the validity of the material.
Sam ShepardRead
For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Playwriting is a creative process that requires attention to essential elements for it to be effective.
In this quote, Sam Shepard compares the art of playwriting to the craftsmanship of making a chair, highlighting the importance of fundamental components such as balance, form, and timing. He suggests that without these critical elements, a play lacks substance and impact, essentially reducing it to mere theoretical writing rather than a compelling performance.
Themes
PlaywritingArtCreativityTheatreCraftsmanship
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the intricacies of playwriting.
More from Sam Shepard
All quotes βI stay away from heavy-handed stuff, the good guy and the bad guy. It just doesn't interest me; all it does is create more fences between people, I think.
Sam ShepardRead
I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. β¦ The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. Thatβs genius.
Sam ShepardRead
There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.
Sam ShepardRead
Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.
Sam ShepardRead
On stage, you're not limited at all because you're free in language: language is the source of the imagination. You can travel farther in language than you can in any film.
Sam ShepardRead
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