A Quote by Theresa Rebeck

Moliere and Arthur Miller affected me at a very young age. In adulthood, I became overwhelmed by Chekhov. Those are my big theatrical influences. — © Theresa Rebeck
Moliere and Arthur Miller affected me at a very young age. In adulthood, I became overwhelmed by Chekhov. Those are my big theatrical influences.
I come from the theatre where there are no boundaries to the style you're doing; you're doing Molière, then you're doing Chekhov and then you're doing Arthur Miller in a season and no-one bats an eye.
Before acting, I was always attracted to words, to literature - be they the words of Williams, Arthur Miller, Shakespeare or Moliere.
The great writers like Chekhov know that tragedy and laughter are just a few steps from each other ... but it took me a long time as an actress to learn that. Actually Arthur Miller taught me in the Seventies. We were making a CBS TV drama of his play Playing for Time about Auschwitz but the characters were laughing. It was a big insight for me to realise that that was what's called gallows humour, in this case worse than the gallows, that humans need to laugh and make jokes in order to survive.
I pay lots of homages. I wanted to pay tribute to a leading Iranian writer, Gholam - Hossein Sa'edi, who is buried in Paris - he is an Iranian Arthur Miller. He is of a similar stature, and his work is similar to that of Arthur Miller.
Arthur Miller once payed me a great compliment saying that my plays were 'necessary.' I will go one step further and say that Arthur's plays are 'essential'
When I met Miller, for me it wasn't a question of wanting to meet him because it was Arthur Miller; it was a kind of astonishment that I could meet someone who was so deeply embedded in the psyche of my artistic development.
One of my biggest influences is Mac Miller, so to follow in his footsteps would be incredible. He's definitely a big inspiration to me.
I became an actor at a very young age, but I also had a deep respect for nature and I think I was sort of a little biologist when I was younger. I watched documentaries on rainforest pollution and the loss of species and habitats for animals around the world. It affected me in a very hardcore, emotional way when I was younger. So, later in life I wanted to continue that path more and investigate and learn more about ecological issues.
In Merlin, Arthur has a very loyal friend who keeps him on his toes. Arthur enjoys those challenges, and there is a lot of great banter between them. Meanwhile, in Arthur, Merlin has a friend he can really rely on. Merlin knows that when it comes the crunch, Arthur will always do the right thing.
I can always do theater; I can do Ibsen, I can do Macbeth, I can do Chekhov, I can do Moliere, Othello, I can do Richard III.
Childhood, young adulthood is fluid. And it's very easy to get labeled very young and have to carry something through your childhood and into your adulthood that is not necessarily who you are.
Some playwrights are obvious influences on younger writers. Arthur Miller (realistic, politically engaged dramas) and Christopher Durang (satirical dark comedies) are examples. But August stands apart, ... He has his special way of seeing things. I remember he and I were at one of those fancy benefits the Rep has. The gay men's chorus was singing, and I was very proud to have brought them into a Rep event. And August says, 'You know, I don't see any black people up there.' That was his focus the lives of black people.
I think, in the early years, my biggest influences would have been... Daft Punk was a huge one for me, I bought their main record when I was nine; at a young age, I was into music. The Prodigy, Gorillaz were big ones.
I wanted to be a boy when I was young because boys got to do all the good stuff. So I became very aggressive and very competitive at a young age.
Arthur Miller wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde.
People don't understand this, but I started very young, and I became very, very successful at a very young age. By the time I was 26 years old, I was a multimillionaire. And I started with nothing. And I was on the road 10, 11 months a year.
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