What I hate about kitchen-sink dramas is [this idea] that the set is real, therefore you're going to be seeing truth. You have to earn truth. Truth can't be a part of the fact that people appear to talk that way and live in that room. You're looking for the poetry in something, and I don't mean poetry in the fancy sense. Naturalism believes by just replicating a thing you give the truth, rather than earning the truth.

John Guare

Categorized in : Drama Real Hate

It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of... by John Guare

It's amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.

hope yesterday littles

Feydeau's one rule of playwriting: by John Guare

Feydeau's one rule of playwriting:

perfect character long

I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.

venice names people

Like a dog, a playwright lives in an eternal present and a play i... by John Guare

Like a dog, a playwright lives in an eternal present and a play is never closed.

playwright dog

The great risk is always saying, "how will I communicate what I'm trying to get across to a room full of strangers sitting in the dark watching a stage?"

risk dark trying

How much of your life can you account for? My life is a collage of unaccounted for brush strokes; I am all random”.

six-degrees-of-separation brushes life-is

You can read ten books and finally come across one detail, and it's like, "now everything else makes sense. Now I know where I am."

details make-sense book

Oh god, I'd just hate it if a certain dramaturg got a hold of a Pinter play, for example, which are all mystery and all music. That's how the life get's sucked out of plays.

hate example play

I only do business with the people I do business with. The people I do business with find out I do business with the people I don't do business with.... I can't do business with you.

crime business people

I wanted to be a Bride of Christ but I guess now I'm a young divo... by John Guare

I wanted to be a Bride of Christ but I guess now I'm a young divorcee.

brides young christ

What we're dealt with hopefully is two arms, two eyes, two legs, a head, a heart. The variations, the extensions, the possibilities of the human body, what that can do

eye heart two

There's no such thing as a perfect play. Sometimes you have to pr... by John Guare

There's no such thing as a perfect play. Sometimes you have to protect the life of the play.

perfect play sometimes

You cannot write to resonate twenty or thirty or forty years from now. You only can write for that very day, but whatever happens is all gravy.

twenties writing years

You don't push the button that says "Now I will write something that resonates in time." You don't know. It's what happens after a play is finished.

buttons play writing

I don't think about taking a risk. I think about how far can I go. How can I make myself. What are the risks I must create.

risk thinking

People rewrite the play so much to make it palatable to the audience, to make something clear, that they just deaden it. Like it was left it in the oven too long.

play long people

Avoiding humiliation is the core of tragedy and comedy. by John Guare

Avoiding humiliation is the core of tragedy and comedy.

humiliation comedy tragedy

Does the New York City Ballet affect other places? Yeah, it lets people know they should come to New York.

cities new-york people

The only riots were the people trying to get tickets. by John Guare

The only riots were the people trying to get tickets.

tickets trying people

I'm sure there are some good dramaturgs but I've never worked wit... by John Guare

I'm sure there are some good dramaturgs but I've never worked with one.