Declan Donnellan > Quotes

“There is no stricter moralist than Fear; and no moralist is a stranger to Fear.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“A theatre is not only a literal place, but also a space where we dream together; not merely a building, but a space that is both imaginative and collective.
pg. 1”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“For we direct, perform and witness performances every night – theatre cannot die before the last dream has been dreamt.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“The actor cannot act a verb without an object.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“We don’t want to depend on things that might let us down.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“Fear’s ploy is to stop us looking at him, or indeed anything else, closely and attentively. When panic strikes it helps to remember that the simple act of paying attention is calming. In fact only attentiveness brings peace.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“Acting is a reflex, a mechanism for development and survival. pg. 2”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“In reality we are present, we can do absolutely nothing to alter that. But we can fantasise that we are somewhere else. In fact we have evolved such ingenious devices to delude ourselves that we are absent that it is extremely difficult to switch them off.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“When all around seems dead, it is a delusion. Fear has doped us till we no longer see the target changing and moving.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“If the Devil jumped in front and faced us, he would vanish. He rules by pretending that, like the Gorgon, the mere glimpse of him would paralyse us. But no, to see him fully would be to destroy him fully. Similarly, we can never get rid of Fear. But we can keep booting him behind us.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“Reality, it is true, has a lot to answer for, so on the whole we make sure we don’t live there. We cannot control reality, but we can control our fantasies. Except our fantasies don’t exist; so we’re not really controlling anything at all. But the illusion of control is deeply reassuring. And the price we pay for this reassurance is unimaginable.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“So far as I know, no one has ever died because they gave a poor performance. The terror that appears so frighteningly real diminishes under closer scrutiny. Of course it is sad to do poor work. But then, we inevitably do a lot of bad work and we all have to deal with that.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“-theatre cannot die before the last dream has been dreamt. pg 1.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“What we say is never about what we say; what we say is about who we are talking to. What we say is a tool to change our hearers.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“But those things that apparently cut out life, or seem to conceal or block it, are not nearly so mysterious as they pretend. These 'things' are bound by logic and may be analysed, isolated and destroyed. pg. 3”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target

“Acting is not transforming into another person. This is, of course, impossible. Irina cannot actually become Lady Macbeth. But what the actor can do is to swap spaces with her character. Irina temporarily steps out of the space of her everyday life and steps into the space of Lady Macbeth. That is the nearest to transforming into the character that Irina will ever get.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Space

“Freedom is everything, but independence is nothing.”
― Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target