Don't be literal

In order to make good theatre, you can’t be literal.

Theatre is fundamentally a medium of metaphor.

The great truths in life can only be glimpsed by metaphor, not factual statements.

This is what people who only read non-fiction because fiction “isn’t real” don’t understand.

This is also what many theatre artists don’t understand.

Theatre is not meant to be a literal art form. That’s what film is for.

Theatre is transcendent, it is ecstatic. It reaches for greater truths through gestures, not through giving us a literal experience.

Don’t be literal.


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