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Tag Archives: George Bernard Shaw
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, / Hath put a spirit of youth in everything …
“Play to the lines, through the lines, but never between the lines. There simply isn’t time for it.” – George Bernard Shaw to actress Ellen Terry on performing Shakespeare, 1896 Today is (supposedly, roughly) the birthday of William Shakespeare. April … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day, Theatre, writers
Tagged Ben Jonson, Ford Madox Ford, George Bernard Shaw, Michael Schmidt, poetry, W.H. Auden, William Shakespeare
9 Comments
“Imagination! Imagination! I put it first years ago, when I was asked what qualities I thought necessary for success on the stage.” –Ellen Terry
“It is only in comedy that people seem to know what I am driving at!” — Ellen Terry It’s her birthday. In 1907, great English actress Ellen Terry (approaching her 50th year onstage) appeared in George Bernard Shaw’s satirical Captain … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, On This Day, Theatre
Tagged Ellen Terry, George Bernard Shaw, Henry Irving, William Shakespeare
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“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Warren Beatty, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
Rejoyce. It’s Bloomsday.
Some men send flowers to commemorate an anniversary. James Joyce wrote Ulysses. Overachiever. On June 15, 1904, young James Joyce sent a note to Nora Barnacle, who was a waitress at Finn’s Hotel. Barnacle (what an apt name) was a … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged Bloomsday, E.M. Forster, Edna O'Brien, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Frank McCourt, George Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein, Ireland, John Banville, Katherine Mansfield, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, T.S. Eliot, Ulysses, Vladimir Nabokov, W.B. Yeats, William Carlos Williams
54 Comments
The Books: Ellen Terry & Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence
Daily Book Excerpt: Memoirs: Next book on the Memoir/Letters/Journals shelf is ELLEN TERRY & BERNARD SHAW: A CORRESPONDENCE., edited by Christopher St. John (a woman, who was the longtime companion of Ellen Terry’s daughter – both formidable women in their … Continue reading
2010 Books Read
Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Andrei Tarkovsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Annie Proulx, books read, Dava Sobel, David O. Selznick, David Thomson, E.M. Forster, Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, Ireland, Jane Langton, Jaws, Joan Blondell, John Banville, John McGahern, Mark Helprin, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Peter Bogdanovich, Rebecca West, Roman Polanski, Ron Chernow, Russia, Serbia, Shirley Jackson, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, Warren Beatty, William Shakespeare
37 Comments
Quotes on acting 9: George Bernard Shaw on Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
I love this because it shows Beerbohm’s inability to be in anything BUT the moment. Rather amusing. I love descriptions of performances that we, in the modern age, actually cannot see. They only existed on the stage, in the performance … Continue reading Continue reading
Interview with Rebecca West
In 1981, Rebecca West was interviewed by The Paris Review, and it’s included in the first volume of the Paris Review interviews. She was an old woman by that point, 90 years old, living in London. Cataracts had ruined her … Continue reading
Posted in writers
Tagged Austria, George Bernard Shaw, Rebecca West, Tom Stoppard, Vanessa Redgrave, W.B. Yeats, war, War and Peace, Yugoslavia
8 Comments
“detesting everything appertaining to Oscar Wilde”
“You must give up detesting everything appertaining to Oscar Wilde or to anyone else. The critic’s first duty is to admit, with absolute respect, the right of every man to his own style.” — George Bernard Shaw to R.E. Golding … Continue reading
Playing Shakespeare
“Play to the lines, through the lines, but never between the lines. There simply isn’t time for it.” — George Bernard Shaw to actress Ellen Terry on performing Shakespeare, 1896