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Quotes by Playwrights
Quotes by Playwrights
I think all of my writing life led up to the writing of 'The Train Driver' because it deals with my own inherited blindness and guilt and all of what being a white South African in South Africa during those apartheid years meant.
Athol Fugard
Life
Writing
Guilt
South Africa
Own
White
Think
Those
My Own
Driver
Because
Blindness
Deals
Years
South
Led
South African
Up
Train
Africa
African
Being
Apartheid
Meant
Inherited
My essential identity is that of a writer.
Athol Fugard
Writer
Identity
Essential
Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.
Athol Fugard
You
People
Political
South Africa
Situation
Other
Telling
About
Obviously
South
Question
Get
Africa
Stories
Lives
Creativity is very selfish. Scandalously so, in fact.
Athol Fugard
Selfish
Creativity
Fact
Very
In Fact
For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.
Athol Fugard
Life
Myself
Writing
Desperate
South Africa
Situation
Action
Believe
Correct
Significant
About
Fact
Write
Allow
Most
Felt
Always
Issue
South
Very
Uneasy
Did
Refused
Africa
Different
Form
Whether
Apartheid
I've had one experience of writer's block in my life, and it was living hell. It was a terror for me.
Athol Fugard
Life
Me
Experience
My Life
Hell
Living
Writer
Had
Terror
Block
Theater will never, and never has, gotten audiences like film. But theater goes to work on society in a different and more subversive way.
Athol Fugard
Work
Will
Society
Way
More
Never
Like
Audiences
Gotten
Goes
Different
Theater
Subversive
Film
The things that converge in the writing of a play come from a complex of motives, a genesis shrouded in a certain kind of mystery.
Athol Fugard
Writing
Complex
Kind
Mystery
Genesis
Come
Motives
Converge
Certain
Play
Things
There are times in my 30 years in the theater that I have come perilously close to losing faith in the one form of action I have in this life.
Athol Fugard
Life
Faith
Losing
Action
Come
Years
Close
Times
Form
Theater
I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.
August Wilson
Change
Writing
Believe
Write
Particularly
Effect
Social
Social Change
Why
From Borges, those wonderful gaucho stories from which I learned that you can be specific as to a time and place and culture and still have the work resonate with the universal themes of love, honor, duty, betrayal, etc. From Amiri Baraka, I learned that all art is political, although I don't write political plays.
August Wilson
Work
Love
Art
Time
You
Culture
Wonderful
Political
Resonate
Honor
Duty
Those
Betrayal
Write
Learned
Although
Still
Stories
Place
Which
Etc
Themes
Specific
Universal
Plays
I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.
August Wilson
Best
Book
Field
Think
Our
Mine
Those
Characters
Blacks
Give
Sacred
Attempted
Since
Attitudes
Ideas
Call
Been
Cultural
Blues
Literature
Them
Created
Here
My plays are ultimately about love, honor, duty, betrayal.
August Wilson
Love
Honor
Duty
About
Betrayal
Ultimately
Plays
How do we transform loss? ... Time's healing balm is essentially a hoax.
August Wilson
Time
Healing
How
Loss
Balm
Hoax
Essentially
Transform
Between speeches and awards, you can find something to do every other week. It's hard to write. Your focus gets splintered. Once you put one thing in your calendar, that month is gone.
August Wilson
You
Focus
Gone
Every
Other
Once
Month
One Thing
Find
Something
Week
Write
Put
Between
Calendar
Gets
Your
Hard
Awards
Thing
Speeches
I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
August Wilson
Future
Saying
Words
Black
Past
Think
Other
Relation
Our
Kind
Black Americans
One Thing
Seem
Determine
Simply
Know
Make
Lot
Historical
America
American
Going
Order
In Other Words
Who
Connection
Thing
Presence
Need
Plays
I've seen some terrible plays, but I generally enjoy myself. One play I walked out of, I have a tremendous respect for the author. That was Robert Wilson, something called 'Network,' which consisted of Wilson sitting on a bunk, the dialogue of the movie 'Network' looped in while a chair on a rope went up and down.
August Wilson
Myself
Respect
Seen
Down
Enjoy
Tremendous
Tremendous Respect
Out
Wilson
Some
Something
Network
Generally
Robert
Terrible
Dialogue
Up
Up And Down
Walked
Bunk
Author
Sitting
Movie
Which
While
Rope
Chair
Play
Plays
Anything you want to know, you ask the characters.
August Wilson
You
Characters
Know
Want
Anything
Ask
As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.
August Wilson
Good
White
Say
Folks
Blacks
Soon
Theater
Whites
Play
I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.
August Wilson
Say
Characters
Some
Slowly
Some Things
About
Piano
Along
Know
Go
Discover
Going
Who
Play
Things
Start
I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.
August Wilson
Work
Myself
People
Think
Say
Write
Self
Picasso
He
Himself
Audience
Always
Same
Artist
Which
Painted
Satisfy
I don't write for a particular audience.
August Wilson
Write
Particular
Audience
In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy, who is a stage director, suggested I turn the poems into a play.
August Wilson
Good
Character
Director
Black
Stage
About
Poems
Wrote
Cattle
Friend
Former
Turn
Who
Bart
Series
Play
Good Friend
Suggested
In 1980 I sent a play, 'Jitney,' to the Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, won a Jerome Fellowship, and found myself sitting in a room with sixteen playwrights. I remember looking around and thinking that since I was sitting there, I must be a playwright, too.
August Wilson
Myself
Remember
Looking
Thinking
Playwright
Playwrights
Too
Must
Minneapolis
Since
Fellowship
Around
Won
Sitting
Sixteen
Center
Room
Sent
Found
Play
From Romare Bearden I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.
August Wilson
Life
Everyday Life
Everyday
Compromise
Rendered
Learned
Without
Sentimentality
Richness
Fullness
I dropped out of school when I was 15 years old. I dropped out because I guess I wasn't getting anything out of my investment in the school.
August Wilson
School
Old
Guess
Out
Investment
Dropped
Because
Years
Getting
Anything
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