| This is finally the quality I treasure most in you: the natural, unforced humanity of your playing—and the humility which sustains it. It enables you to perform the supreme artistic public act—infinitely harder than making movies—of conjuring that veritable and inimitable magic which can only be called up on a stage, which no other help than breath and body: an instinct to shape scenes, and a voice to shape lines. Playwrights are lucky to have you. Audiences are lucky to see you. And the Theatre itself—eternal, now beleaguered on all sides by literalism and banality—is lucky to possess you. Peter
Shaffer |
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