INSPIRATION

On the one hand, there is the reality of text; on the other hand, the actor and his behavior - two parallel systems that are neither dependent on nor reflect each other. The actor's "behavior" should "paralyze"; the reality of the text, be juxtaposed to it. If this happens, the reality of the text will be relieved of its questionable ally, the actor (questionable because it is rendered only through him), and become independent, (also) autonomous, and concrete.

Tadeusz Kantor "The Zero Theatre"

Dialogue-a thing written and spoken-does not belong specifically to the stage, it belongs to books, as is proved by the fact that in all handbooks of literary history a place is reserved for the theater as a subordinate branch of the history of the spoken language.

I say that the stage is a concrete physical place which asks to be filled, and to be given its own concrete language to speak. I say that this concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech, has first to satisfy the senses, that there is a poetry of the senses as there is a poetry of language, and that this concrete physical language to which I refer is truly theatrical only to the degree that the thoughts it expresses are beyond the reach of the spoken language.

Antonin Artaud "Metaphysics and Mise en scene"

The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character. It is obvious that Hamlet, say, is more alive than the man in the street, being both more complicated and more integrated, and perhaps he is the only one really alive, for he is walking abstraction.

Alfred Jarry "Twelve Theatrical Topics"