Quotes & Sayings About Dramatic Play

If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In — Oscar Wilde

A lot of people don't see me as a funny character because I don't usually get to play them. I'm usually cast in the more dramatic roles, so it's been a really, really fun time playing her humor and her attitude. She's a complete tomboy, so I did a really intense study on men and how they relate to each other, in the way they walk and hold themselves and position themselves in the hierarchy, just in something as simple as a conversation. — Angie Harmon

Art,' she said.
'My second favorite subject.'
She gave him a shrewd look. 'You wish for me to ask you what your favorite is.'
'Am I so obvious?'
'You are only obvious when you wish to be.'
'And alas, it still doesn't work. You have not asked me what my favorite subject is.'
'Because,' she returned, sitting down, 'I am quite certain the answer will contain something highly inappropriate.'
He placed one hand on his chest, the dramatic gesture somehow restoring his equilibrium. It was easier to play the jester. No one expected as much from fools. 'I am wounded,' he proclaimed. 'I promise you, I was not going to say that my favorite subject was seduction, or the art of a kiss, or the proper way to remove a lady's glove, or for that matter the proper way to remove - '
'Stop! — Julia Quinn

I know I can handle dramatic roles, but I don't think I should have to play a young mother on crack to prove it. — Hilary Duff

In the West, audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero. — Chow Yun-Fat

I was in the play 'Fat Pig in the West End,' which is a comedy but has dramatic moments. — Robert Webb

PANTOMIME, n. A play in which the story is told without violence to the language. The least disagreeable form of dramatic action. — Ambrose Bierce

The play is one of the very few pieces of great dramatic and comic writing that I have read in a long, long time. I was drawn to it because of the power of the writing, which gives me the actor a chance to explore many facets of myself. — Linda Lavin

Izzy felt as though she'd wandered into the third act of a play. She had no idea what was going on, but it was unbearably dramatic. — Tessa Dare

Being an actor gives you a chance to play all kinds of roles, very moving and dramatic on one project, silly and girlish on another. That's the most interesting thing out this business, you get to keep reinventing yourself. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

I think I have so much more to accomplish in this world of acting. There are many different types of characters I want to play. I want to keep making people laugh, and I want to explore dramatic roles as well. — Dilshad Vadsaria

The tragedy of "Hamlet" is critically considered to be the masterpiece of dramatic poetry; and the tragedy of "Hamlet" is also, according to the testimony of every sort of manager, the play of all others which can invariably be depended on to fill a theater. — George Augustus Henry Sala

People can have so many ill-conceived ideas about me based on the parts that I play. I've had guys, when I've been single, come out of the woodwork to date me and I've found out very quickly that they were expecting some kind of whirlwind, some dramatic crazy person - and that's just not me. — Jennifer Jason Leigh

It's a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved - people's ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and I think it's something we can all identify with to a degree. — Beau Willimon

In the first place, it must be remembered that our point of view in examining the construction of a play will not always coincide with that which we occupy in thinking of its whole dramatic effect. — Andrew Coyle Bradley

I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we've been through, — Max Roach

When I'm editing, I try to bring out some dramatic structure. I think it is about theater in some way; it is a little play. — Sheila Heti

I've always been quite an active person especially when I was younger. When I was in primary school, I used to play lots of sports. I was a sprinter and I did basketball and swimming and Gaelic football and things like that. So I always thought, I guess, that it would be fun to incorporate that much physical activity and work into a dramatic piece. — Saoirse Ronan

I like the hot-cold, the sugar-salt, being able to play over-the-top and dramatic things - in the same film. Just as in my life, I can be very funny and at other times almost extinguished. — Jean Dujardin

The death of an infinite player is dramatic. It does not mean that the game comes to an end with death; on the contrary, infinite players offer their death as a way of continuing the play. For that reason they do not play for their own life; they live for their own play. But since that play is always with others, it is evident that infinite players both live and die for the continuing life of others. — James P. Carse

When I started off as an actress, I did at a play at the Taper Too Theatre here in Los Angeles, called 'In The Abyss Of Coney Island.' That was more of a dramatic play. It was a small theater house. This was the first time I was literally on the road, doing a play, for four months. — Vivica A. Fox

Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending. — Bob Woodward

There are some guys I know for a fact, like Louis C.K., who always talk about how not-great of an actor he is, and he's terrific on his show. But I know Louis would play a fantastic dramatic role in something, too. He just needs somebody to grab him and say, 'Come in here and do this.' — Denis Leary

The great amount of fun that I have is I can cast dramatic actors to play comedic roles, and I can cast comedic actors to play dramatic roles because, really, there's no such thing. There's just actors. — Noah Hawley

I'm very serious about becoming a dramatic actor. I don't want to play cameo parts walking on as Carl Lewis the athlete. I want to go on stage or screen and be taken seriously. — Carl Lewis

I needed to create some dramatic tension to sustain the interest of the audience. For instance, the boy in the film is not in the play, so this relationship that he had with the former teacher, and his guilt, this is not at all in the play. I thought it would be interesting to look at in the film, and I added stuff like that around the main character. For me, it was not more difficult or less difficult. — Philippe Falardeau

I loved the theatre-my dad gave me many plays and books to read. The dramatic form just spoke to me. — Danny Burstein

The backstage play, in which the private lives of theater people are put onstage for the world to see, is one of the diciest of dramatic genres. — Terry Teachout

My grandmother, Angela, was the Fox family matriarch. She was magnetic but also wicked. She had this huge life force and was great fun, but she would play each member of the family off against each other, which could make for extremely dramatic Christmases. — Emilia Fox

I hoped the dramatic power of the play would rest on that tension between elegant structure - the underlying plan is that you see the first and last meeting of every couple in the play - and inelegant emotion. — Patrick Marber

Now for St. Francis nothing was ever in the background. We might say that his mind had no background, except perhaps that divine darkness out of which the divine love had called up every colored creature one by one. He saw everything as dramatic, distinct from its setting, not all of a piece like a picture but in action like a play. A bird went by him like an arrow; something with a story and a purpose, though it was a purpose of life and not a purpose of death. A bush could stop him like a brigand; and indeed he was as ready to welcome the brigand as the bush. — G.K. Chesterton

A silly comedy needs a straight guy, and that guy needs to be as straight as possible. The moment you start playing straight you're not straight anymore, you're bent straight, so it really requires the usual serious, straight-forward analysis and research, looking into it and finding the dramatic function, all of what you do until you feel you've collected enough points to safely and securely play the part. — Christoph Waltz

A play's got to be a dramatic event, not a lyrical event. It's not music, it's not poetry, it's not dance, it's not narrative - it's dramaticit's about conflict. It's about forces coming together. — Romulus Linney

I kind of play like a guy. I don't hold grudges. I don't get dramatic with things. If somebody slide tackles me in training and we leave the field, I'm still talking to them. I think that there's very few of us out there that can just take confrontation, and if you've got an issue with something, you can go to that person and say it. — Carli Lloyd

The impulse to write the poem, that impulse is a great dramatic impulse. But hell, anybody could write a play. I do know this: all writers are not dramatists. You may be a great writer, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a dramatist. Very few people have done both. — August Wilson

When the drama attains a characterization which makes the play a revelation of human conduct and a dialogue which characterizes yet pleases for itself, we reach dramatic literature. — George Pierce Baker

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such
an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their
absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us
an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.
Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of
beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the
whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly
we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the
play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder
of the spectacle enthralls us. — Oscar Wilde

Actor training should be broadly humanistic, involving the study not just of dramatic literature and theatre history, but of languages, literature, and history generally, and should be centered on acting in plays rather than just exercises, improvisations, monologues, or even scenes. — Richard Hornby

Dwight Langley, the painter, is the pure exponent of the evil the play is attacking; he is, in effect, the spokesman for Platonism, who explicitly preaches that beauty is unreachable in this world and perfection unattainable. Since he insists that ideals are impossible on earth, he cannot, logically enough, believe in the reality of any ideal, even when it actually confronts him. Thus, although he knows every facet of Kay Gonda's face, he (alone among the characters) does not recognize her when she appears in his life. This philosophically induced blindness, which motivates his betrayal of her, is a particularly brilliant concretization of the play's theme, and makes a dramatic Act I curtain. — Ayn Rand

Conversation lets you be an artist every time you open your mouth--or shut it. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, "The most important art is to omit"; the key to being a master conversationalist is to listen at least as much as you talk. Just as the other arts include pauses in a dramatic play, white margins around printed text, and space between a singer's phrases, conversation is about silences as well as about words. — Margaret Shepherd

When I auditioned actors I never make them act. I choose a long symphony, then I tell them to sit down and I play the symphony for them. Then I sit and I look at them. I always pick a piece of music that has up and downs, very dramatic parts, very quiet parts and really sensitive parts so that it can produce different emotions. — Pirjo Honkasalo

To be honest with you, the dramatic side is more fun to play because I don't get to do it as often as I get to do the comedy stuff. Most of my work in this business has been comedy, and that's sort of the way the cookie crumbles. I had not sought out to just be a comedic actor, but I think that's my default because I come from a funny family. — Erica Ash

Of the many qualities I adore about Melissa McCarthy as a comedian and as a dramatic actor, the best is how fully she gives herself to every character she plays. — Lisa Schwarzbaum

The Hegelian babble about the real being the true is therefore the same kind of confusion as when people assume that the words and actions of a poet's dramatic characters are the poet's own. We must, however, hold fast to the belief that when God - so to speak - decides to write a play, he does not do it simply in order to pass the time, as the pagans thought. No, no: indeed, the utterly serious point here is that loving and being loved is God's passion. It is almost - infinite love! - as if he is bound to this passion, almost as if it were a weakness on his part; whereas in fact it is his strength, his almighty love: and in that respect his love is subject to no alteration of any kind. There — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

I think a lot of the instincts you have doing comedy are really the same for doing drama, in that it's essentially about listening. The way I approach comedy, is you have to commit to everything as if it's a dramatic role, meaning you play it straight. — Will Ferrell

In politics, arts / no issue's dramatic / nor will 'play' till its heart's / simplified to fanatic. — Mona Van Duyn

Canasta is a new game that bids fair to rival Bridge as a popular partnership game for four players. It's fast, exciting and dramatic; a single play, according to experts, can make a difference of 5,000 points. — Albert H. Morehead

Well, boys will be bores. Tell me all about yourself, Mary. I've had a marvellous time over my novel. A man I know is really keen to film it, and I have a chance of getting a dramatic version broadcast. That's why I've been away all the time. I was so busy.' 'Is your novel really written, then?' asked Mary. 'Oh, no, that's the whole point. I shall do the film version and the dramatic version, and then with that success behind me it will be as easy as anything to write the novel. People often do, you know. "The Story of the Play". How is Martin's party getting on?' 'It — Angela Thirkell

In a very literal way, of course, Shakespeare did change the course of history: when it didn't fit the plot he had in mind, he simply rewrote it. His English histories play fast and loose with chronology and fact to achieve the desired dramatic effect, re-ordering history even as it was then understood. — Neil MacGregor

Acheson then jumped into action with a dramatic and deliberately florid statement of what was later to be known as the "domino theory" of foreign interconnection. "We are met at Armageddon," he began: Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the East. It would also carry infection to spread through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France. . . . The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost. . . . We and we alone were in a position to break up this play.44 — James T. Patterson

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be. — Ridley Scott

Typecasting is something I have to be careful with, since I play myself on Geek & Sundry so much on my weekly show 'The Flog.' That's why I did 'Dragon Age: Redemption' last year, so I could do something a little more dramatic and hard-edged. — Felicia Day

I started in theater. I would liken sitcom work more to theater work than I would, perhaps, to dramatic television. It's so quick. It kind of feels like the pace of a play. — James Wolk

I might play a lot of dramatic roles, but I'm really sort of silly. — Leighton Meester

The good thing about Weeds now is, I get to play some dramatic parts in that as well. — Kevin Nealon

The Indians and Chinese have become brilliant chess professionals. They get on a plane and play all over the world. This has led to dramatic pressure on incomes. Nowadays, the best chess player in Argentina can no longer make a living playing chess. — Kenneth Rogoff

I think from an actor's point of view, you always want something to play that's dramatic or something that feels like it could be very bold in choice. And of course, the boldest possible choice you could play at the end of a character's life is death. — Owain Yeoman