I think theater ought to be theatrical ... you know, shuffling the pack in different ways so that it's -- there's always some kind of ambush involved in the experience. You're being ambushed by an unexpected word, or by an elephant falling out of the cupboard, whatever it is.
Interpretation
Theater should be surprising and dynamic, constantly engaging the audience in new and unexpected ways.
In this quote, Tom Stoppard expresses the idea that theater should not adhere to predictable patterns but instead should engage the audience with spontaneous and surprising elements. The analogy of being 'ambushed' by unexpected occurrences in a performance suggests that true theatrical experiences challenge the audience's expectations and keep them on their toes, creating a more immersive and memorable experience.
In practice
In a discussion about innovative theater productions, this quote can highlight the importance of surprise elements in engaging the audience.
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.
People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself.
I put it [picture "A still life of a pear" by Edouard Manet] there [on the wall, next to the picture "Jupiter and Thetis" by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres], for a pear like that would overthrow any god.
Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection.
The essential thing is to work in a state of mind that approaches prayer.
At the time I begin writing a novel, the last thing I want to do is follow a plot outline. To know too much at the start takes the pleasure out of discovering what the book is about.
I've always felt like I was an actor for hire. And almost apologetic for being a woman of color, trying to stifle that voice. But I don't feel that way in Shondaland. I feel like I am accepted into a world where I'm a part of the narrative - I'm a part of it.
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