Notes

(Singer 1993)

"You start with some small principle and you build a theatrical presentation out of it. You do something that’s technically artistic that creates a small drama."

"(...) it’s very hard to isolate technique from performance. (...)
He’s mixing disparate things—quirky scholarship, iconoclasm, technique, a good story—into some soup that works."

"With Carlyle, the purpose was to absorb what my grandfather called the clarity of instruction—how Carlyle subtly guided the spectator in a way that enhanced the clarity of the effect."

"At McCabe’s, he was doing improvisational patter. He had his stuff down so well he was just free. He had the guts to bring people onstage and really play with them, instead of having to be so careful that they might see something that would cause him to blow what he was trying to do. He was very casual, but his language had a Shakespearean feel. He was brutal with hecklers—not because it would throw him off. He just didn’t like hecklers. He vaporized them.”

"For half an hour, I was as badly fooled as I’ve ever been. In order for him to bring that about, he had to take dead aim at me. That’s a phrase we use in discussing the big con: taking dead aim—deeply researching somebody’s habits.”