Martha Lavey @ Steppenwolf:

We need to ask ourselves what we want our art to do, what we want the space that art clears in the public discourse, to permit. To me, it gets down to: how much do we trust ourselves and each other? Can we tolerate listening to language we do not choose to practice ourselves in the service of ideas not our own? Do we trust that our community will continue to shape a shared environment of values that will generously and wisely offer correctives to the excesses that cause damage and threaten our collective well-being? Do we assert this trust with the confidence that hearing the voice of another is, finally, a test of our own democratic convictions and well-being? Can we tolerate the representation of behaviors on stage that we disdain in our immediate sphere of life?

The presence of the audience, the hivemind: theatre's job is to destroy the collective consciousness, to give each individual the courage to feel and decide for herself in the midst of the mob.

And then there is the theatre of the mess: toys scattered, never to be recognised or used, like the playpen of a dull infant.

There's a motto in my profession, goes
something like this:
Never say the Scottish play when walking round
backstage
Never kiss the understudies when they're underage
Don't fool with the lighting guy if you want to be
well lit
And stay away from the costumer if you want it all to
fit

Chorus:
And Never Never Never fuck your director
Never Never Never fuck your director