Unlike film and TV, theater is a luxury object, but one that ordinary middle-class people can still afford. Above all, it isn't a mass medium: Live theater is a small-scale, handmade art form. Intimacy is what makes it special.
Terry TeachoutRead
No translation can possibly be perfect. Every production and every performance is a different path up the mountain, and nobody ever makes it all the way to the summit.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Translations are inherently imperfect and unique to each interpreter's experience.
This quote highlights the idea that every translation of a work of art possesses its own unique interpretations and nuances, much like various routes taken up a mountain. No matter how skilled the interpreter or the quality of the translation, it can never capture the original perfectly, emphasizing the subjective nature of art and expression.
Themes
TranslationArtImperfectionPerformanceInterpretation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the value of art translations during a symposium.
More from Terry Teachout
All quotes βNo, I don't know how to get young people to start listening to jazz again. But I do know this: Any symphony orchestra that thinks it can appeal to under-30 listeners by suggesting that they 'should' like Schubert and Stravinsky has already lost the battle.
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Century-old records are the closest thing we have to a time machine. To listen to the voice of Theodore Roosevelt or the piano playing of Claude Debussy is to feel the years falling away like autumn leaves from a maple tree.
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Just as most of us prefer to watch a trapeze artist work without a net, we like to be absolutely sure that a virtuoso is giving us our money's worth, and a seemingly effortless performance, no matter how spectacular it may be, deprives us of that slightly sadistic thrill.
Terry TeachoutRead
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