Like the tail fins on fifties American cars or the parabolic shapes of Populuxe furniture, 'West Side Story' incarnates the dream of momentum in the golden age of the twentieth century. John Lahr More Quotes by John Lahr More Quotes From John Lahr Most of the people dishing out judgment have no working experience of the theatre, have not written a professional play, a sketch, or even a joke; have never worked in a theatre, taken an acting class, or published any extended piece of work. They are creative virgins; everything they know about theatre is book-learned and second-hand. John Lahr taken class book The pigeons are shitting on George M. Cohan. I shoo them off. They fly up and perch on his hat. Cohan would've never given his regards to Broadway if he saw how dirty they kept his statue in Duffy Square. New Yorkers walk right by. Nobody cares. John Lahr pigeons squares dirty His life was one long extravaganza, like living inside a Faberge egg. John Lahr eggs long I know in an existential sense that life can change on a dime ... something has instantly and inexorably changed in American life. John Lahr dimes existential changed The only thing I get from the theatre is a sore arse. John Lahr arses theatre Questions about political theatre always overlook America's most powerful and effective political theatre, which is always thriving: the American musical. The politics is conservative but, to my mind, effective and insidious. John Lahr political powerful america A cruel critic has never made anything; his glibness is a way of inflicting his emptiness on others. John Lahr emptiness criticism way Writers don't always know what they mean - that's why they write. Their work stands in for them. On the page, the reader meets the authoritative, perfected self; in life, the writer is lumbered with the uncertain, imperfect one. John Lahr self writing mean Identity is memory; when memory disappears, the self dissolves and love with it. John Lahr identity self memories I detest literature. I abominate the theatre. I have a horror of culture. I am only interested in magic! John Lahr magic theatre culture Death of a Salesman' is a brilliant taxonomy of the spiritual atrophy of mid-twentieth-century white America. John Lahr spiritual white america Nobody has ever gone broke selling escape to the American public. John Lahr broke selling gone Broadway shows in New York draw two times the attendance of all New York sports teams put together. John Lahr team new-york sports Of the modern critics, although I disagree with almost everything she says, I admire Mary McCarthy's eloquence and social observation in 'Sights and Spectacles'; she thinks in print, but she doesn't have a real feel for the stage. John Lahr real sight thinking Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot,' billed as 'the laugh sensation of two continents,' made its American debut at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, in Miami, Florida, in 1956. My father, Bert Lahr, was playing Estragon, one of the two bowler-hatted tramps who pass the time in a lunar landscape as they wait in vain for the arrival of a Mr. Godot. John Lahr florida two father The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak. John Lahr practice drama art Theatre is a game of hide-and-seek. For both the hiders and the seekers, the thrill is in the discovery. When the rules of the game are too vague or too complicated, however, the audience can lose its urge to play; the prize no longer seems quite worth the hunt. John Lahr games play discovery Theatre people, who are an adaptive species, know that to remain sane in the process of production where everyone and his uncle has an opinion about how to fix a show, you must pick the people whose knowledge and taste you trust and stick only to these few. The Tweetocracy is no place to look. John Lahr uncles theatre people Tony Awards boost Broadway attendance and sell the shows on the road. They're the sugar to swat the fly. If you needed more explanation for the yearly ballyhoo, in the metropolitan areas where a Broadway show plays, the local economy is boosted by three and a half times the gross ticket sales. So when we're talking Tonys, we're talking moolah. John Lahr awards play talking We were postwar middle-class white kids living in the slipstream of the greatest per-capita rise in income in the history of Western civilization; we were 'teen-agers' - a term, coined in 1941, that was in common usage a decade later - a new, recognizable franchise. We had money, mobility, and problems all our own. John Lahr class civilization kids
