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Michèle Brown – How to Use This Book – T he primary aim of this book is to reflect the wit and wisdom of the theatre in a wide-ranging selection of quotations which can be dipped into at random or read section by section. The titles of the sections are found in the contents list at the front of the book. The index is biographical, giving the dates where known, and a brief description of the person concerned, then listing all references to them in the book. This index includes details of people written about (e.g. Mary Betterton) and of people quoted (e.g. George Jean Nathan). Obviously there are many people who come into both categories (e.g. Olivier). Including biographical information in the text would mean cumbersome repetition. However, understanding the wider context of the quotations enhances their value and I recommend using this index extensively. A few conventions have been used which might possibly be unfamiliar to some readers. Ibid means that a quotation comes from the same author and source as the quotation immediately preceding it; fl. in the biographical index means that I do not have exact dates of birth and death of the person named but that he or she flourished around the date indicated. xii
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ACTING In London acting is not a capricious, freakish, or Bohemian way of life. It is an ancient and honourable profession that is accepted by the public as a normal part of the life of London. – Brooks Atkinson Broadway, 1970 Acting is a bum’s life. Quitting acting – that is a sign of maturity. – Marlon Brando When you act in the West End you pick up your coffee cup in exactly the same way for nine months. – Richard Briers The Times, 6 May 1992 I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting. – Lord Byron letter to Thomas Moore, 1814 All acting is a question of control, the control of the actor of himself, and through himself of the audience. – Noël Coward quoted in Great Acting (ed. H. Burton), 1967 Acting is the shy person’s revenge on the world. – Sinead Cusack Daily Mail, 16 February 1991 I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my own just above the others . . . To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it and that was Sculpture; He coloured it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal Drama. – Charlotte Cushman An actor with no insecurities would be lost. – Judi Dench Daily Mail, 21 January 1992 It is easier to get an actor to be a cowboy than to get a cowboy to be an actor. – John Ford attrib. Of all the arts I think acting must be the least concrete, the most solitary. – John Gielgud Early Stages, 1938 When you finally learn how to do it you’re too old for the good parts. – Ruth Gordon quoted in Leonard Lyons’ 1

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Michèle Brown

– How to Use This Book –

T he primary aim of this book is to reflect the wit and wisdom of the theatre in a wide-ranging selection of quotations which can be dipped into at random or read section by section. The titles of the sections are found in the contents list at the front of the book.

The index is biographical, giving the dates where known, and a brief description of the person concerned, then listing all references to them in the book. This index includes details of people written about (e.g. Mary Betterton) and of people quoted (e.g. George Jean Nathan). Obviously there are many people who come into both categories (e.g. Olivier). Including biographical information in the text would mean cumbersome repetition. However, understanding the wider context of the quotations enhances their value and I recommend using this index extensively.

A few conventions have been used which might possibly be unfamiliar to some readers. Ibid means that a quotation comes from the same author and source as the quotation immediately preceding it; fl. in the biographical index means that I do not have exact dates of birth and death of the person named but that he or she flourished around the date indicated.

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