To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air; the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.
Eleanora DuseTo save the Theatre, the Theatre must be destroyed, and actors and actresses all die of the Plague ... they make art impossible.
Eleanora DuseWhen we grow old, there can only be one regret - not to have given enough of ourselves.
Eleanora DuseIbsen is like this room where we are sitting, with all the tables and chairs. Do I care whether you have twenty or twenty-five links on your chain? Hedda Gabler, Nora and the rest: it is not that I want! I want Rome and the Coliseum, the Acropolis, Athens; I want beauty, and the flame of life.
Eleanora DuseThe one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.
Eleanora DuseI use everything that I pick up in my memory, and everything that vibrates in my soul.
Eleanora DuseIf I had my will, I would live in a ship on the sea and never come nearer to humanity than that!
Eleanora Duse... does it seem to you that it is possible to speak of Art? It would be the same as explaining love!
Eleanora DuseIf I were twenty or thirty years younger, I would start afresh in this field with the certainty of accomplishing much. But I should have to learn from the bottom up, forgetting the theatre entirely and concentrating on the special medium of this new art. My mistake, and that of many others, lay in employing "theatrical" techniques despite every effort to avoid them. Here is something quite, quite fresh, a penetrating form of visual poetry, an untried exponent of the human soul. Alas, I am too old for it!
Eleanora DuseWe should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.
Eleanora Duse