Home > Work > A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre
1 " Most of the truly remarkable experiences I've had in theatre have filled me with uncertainty and disorientation "
― Anne Bogart , A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre
2 " Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act—a key collaborator. "
3 " As a young man, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre served as a sailor on a trading ship. One cold and stormy night the ship put into the port of Hamburg, Germany. Sartre got off the ship and made his way through the rainy windswept streets to the shelter of a seedy bar. He sat down at a tableand ordered a drink. After a while a beautifulwoman made her way towards his table,introduced herself and sat down next to him. They began to talk. Finally, after quite some time, the woman excused herself to go to the bathroom. As he sat alone, anticipating her return, Sartre imagined the night that he and the woman would spend together in a hotel room, the seduction, the sex, and ultimately their farewell the next morning. He imagined the letters they would send to one another in anticipation of reunion. He envisioned the story that lay ahead of them. Suddenly, as he awaited her return from the bathroom, Sartre experienced an epiphany. He realized that every moment of his life, including this one, offered a choice. He could either choose to live his life in the fabricated fiction of a story,or to embrace the discontinuous blips and bleeps of human existence and live without the security of a story. All at once Sartre made the decision. He stood up and walked out of the bar and into the storm and never saw the woman again. "
