A Letter to Myself

Last night we opened with The Corn Is Green.  Openings are revealing things to me.  After considerable strain from the many pressures of such a task, the point is reached where no more can be done, and one stands naked in his effort.  Judgment is made of the quilted emotional spasms of trying to create something meaningful and beautiful.  It has taken several years of such attempts to be able to accept the audiences as qualified judges, but they, of course, are.  Quality does not have to be a stranger; it can take a communicative form.  The problem in (young people’s) theatre is to surpass the entertainment level without excluding it.

In a fever of self-conscious demanding of impossible perfection likened to a religious revival, it is easy to forget the validity of the judges, and blame any restlessness on their insensitivity (or youth).

And when somehow there is a locked response of those people in the audience, there to see that demon effort, then it is easy to say to one’s self, they react to my effort.

It is probably truer to recognize that people are a warm puddle of likeness who, when opened to their deeper natural feelings, will stand revealed in the light of camaraderie, of involvement.