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
In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is unpredictable, and this unpredictability can enhance our experiences, both on stage and in reality.
In this quote, Sam Shepard emphasizes the importance of embracing uncertainty and spontaneity in both life and performance. He suggests that acknowledging the unknown can create a deeper connection to the human experience, allowing both the performer and the audience to resonate with the authenticity of life's unpredictable nature.
Themes
UncertaintyPerformanceLifeAuthenticitySpontaneity
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote at a theater workshop to inspire actors to embrace spontaneity.
More from Sam Shepard
All quotes →I 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. … 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. That’s 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
Similar quotes
Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You're three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.
Mary KarrRead
It haunted him all night, while he slept alone; it was still there in the morning, when he swallowed his coffee and backed down the driveway in the crumpled old Ford. And riding to work, one of the youngest and healthiest passengers on the train, he sat with the look of a man condemned to a very slow, painless death. He felt middle-aged.
Richard YatesRead
my hands dead my heart dead silence adagio of rocks the world ablaze that's the best for me.
Charles BukowskiRead
I think sometimes what happens is that all of this feeling out of control manifests itself in trying to control your body; whether it's an eating disorder or talking about getting your nose fixed, as if that's going to be the solution to all the pressure.
Susan SarandonRead
You do not choose the life you will experience ahead of time. You may select the persons, places and events - the conditions and circumstances, the challenges, the opportunities and options - with which to create experiences. What you create with these is your business.
Neale Donald WalschRead
Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high, look it quarely in the eye and say, 'I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.
Ann LandersRead