4/4/09

Quotations: Volume 25

Here are some of the educational, inspirational, and humorous quotations from my classes this week:


"She used to call my soft palate 'The Rock of Gibraltar'; she could not move it." - O.D., on his last Linklater instructor

"My brother and I developed our own way of speaking. It got so bad that my parents couldn't understand us. I spoke mostly in onomatopoeia." - O.D.

"The land of Linklater; loose jaws and morals." - Linklater Instructor

(Discussing Killer's character in Three Sisters)
Killer: So I have to leave, but something is keeping me on the porch.
Acting Professor: Well, it's not exactly a tea party you're going to.

"...then Stanislavski came along and confused the hell out of everyone. Don't get me wrong. His motivations were noble, and his ideas were true. But he also invented a lot of would-be science." - Acting Professor

"If you're fired, your pension will be nothing to write home about. In fact, you won't have the money to buy the ink to write home about it." - Acting Professor, to O.D. about his character Ferapont in Three Sisters

"Chekhov's characters are huge. And all these tiny insignificant details pollute the water. And the water, which should be crystal clear, is so polluted and cloudy that we can no longer see the soul." - Acting Professor

"Don't settle for thirty-percent freedom. Push the envelope. Go for it. Fall on your face. Break your face. But then get back up. And next time, it will be fifty. Because you made a mistake, and you learned from it." - Acting Professor

Acting Professor: If you don't have full freedom, they will think, "Sure, he can play Rosencrantz or Guildenstern pretty well... But he's no Hamlet." You see? And by the way, what about Guildenstern and Rosencrantz?
Me: They're dead.
Acting Professor: They need to have freedom, too.

Acting Professor: Everything needs to be taken in its context. That's why I keep telling Angela, 'Don't quote me out of context.' They'll send me to jail.
Me: Well, I'm writing THAT one down.
Acting Professor: You're unreformable. Unreformable!
(Note: his last line was quoting Kulygin in Three Sisters)

"As actors, you have a very practical way of testing things. It's called rehearsal." - Acting Professor

"Don't tell [Analysis Professor] or anyone else I said this..." - Acting Professor

(after D-Train pondered over whether something was consistent among all works of the author of These Shining Lives)
Analysis Professor: What a very good point, [D-Train]. One would have to do research on that, wouldn't one?
D-Train: One would, if one really wanted to know.

(at a rehearsal for Three Postcards)
Analysis Professor (Director of Three Postcards): These people are New Yorkers. They have to be multi-taskers.
2nd-Year BW: I went to New York once, and I saw CATS.

(at a rehearsal for Three Postcards)
"This is the only time you'll hear me make a sports metaphor. You have to take the ball and pass it. You can't just hold onto it because that's a penalty in some sport or another." - Analysis Professor

"They can always buy train tickets and meet each other halfway and do it." - Acting Professor, on why Másha and Vershínin being forced apart shouldn't worry Ólga as much as the effect of Túzenbach's death on Irína in Three Sisters

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