George Pierce Baker Quotes

American - Educator | April 4, 1866 - January 6, 1935

The instinct to impersonate produces the actor; the desire to provide pleasure by impersonations produces the playwright; the desire to provide this pleasure with adequate characterization and dialogue memorable in itself produces dramatic literature.

George Pierce Baker

LiteratureDesireMemorableActor

Back through the ages of barbarism and civilization, in all tongues, we find this instinctive pleasure in the imitative action that is the very essence of all drama.

George Pierce Baker

ActionBackFindDramaCivilization

Drama read to oneself is never drama at its best, and is not even drama as it should be.

George Pierce Baker

BestDramaNeverReadEvenShould

In the best farce today we start with some absurd premise as to character or situation, but if the premises be once granted we move logically enough to the ending.

George Pierce Baker

CharacterTodayBestStartEnding

Acted drama requires surrender of one's self, sympathetic absorption in the play as it develops.

George Pierce Baker

SelfDramaPlaySurrenderActed

But what is drama? Broadly speaking, it is whatever by imitative action rouses interest or gives pleasure.

George Pierce Baker

ActionDramaPleasureWhateverGives

Farce treats the improbable as probable, the impossible as possible.

George Pierce Baker

ImpossiblePossibleImprobableFarce

In all the great periods of the drama perfect freedom of choice and subject, perfect freedom of individual treatment, and an audience eager to give itself to sympathetic listening, even if instruction be involved, have brought the great results.

George Pierce Baker

FreedomGreatListeningChoiceDrama

In reading plays, however, it should always be remembered that any play, however great, loses much when not seen in action.

George Pierce Baker

GreatActionReadingPlayAlways

No drama, however great, is entirely independent of the stage on which it is given.

George Pierce Baker

GreatDramaIndependentStageGiven

Out of the past come the standards for judging the present; standards in turn to be shaped by the practice of present-day dramatists into broader standards for the next generation.

George Pierce Baker

PastPracticePresentGenerationOut

Rare is the human being, immature or mature, who has never felt an impulse to pretend he is some one or something else.

George Pierce Baker

MatureNeverHumanImmatureRare

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