Speeches
"It has also been said, and I'm not sure by whom, that the moment of not knowing is the moment hat has the greatest potential for creativity." - 1998 Helen Hayes Awards
The American Express Tribute Acceptance Speech
I'm deeply honored by receiving this award and I thank both American Express and The Helen Hayes Awards for deeming me worthy of it, but in reviewing the roster of past recipients of the award I'm not so sure that I am worthy. This is nothing new for me. My first equity job was with a summer stock theater in Atlantic City. I was thrilled by it all. I would hug myself in secret and say "I'm an actor. i must be. They're paying me for it. $55 a week. " But, I still don't quite believe it.
Many years later, I was being interviewed and was asked what it was like to be an actor for so long a time. My answer was that on the first day of rehearsal faced with a new script, a bare stage, and the whole panoply of theater surrounding me, the thought would occur that "I don't know how to do this; I don't even know where to start." But, start we would and in the rehearsal process of four or five weeks, I would add a little bit of this or that, a note from the director, a look from another actor, an idea from the subtext, etc. and then the play would open to some success or even failure, but at least I'd gotten thru it. Then the thought would occur, "Aha, I've fooled them again! They haven't found out yet that I don't know how to do this." Rex Harrison once said, "I have now gotten to the age when i must prove that I'm just as good as I never was."
I love actors and by extension, the theater. I love the minutia that surrounds them both. I love listening and telling Green Room war stories. I love the onstage triumphs and yes, I love even the disasters. They make for better war stories. I love the adrenaline that shoots thru every actor onstage when something goes wrong, and the relief that sweeps thru when some heroic actor saves the day. And even though it still scares me, I love performance. That time when the human beings onstage interact with the human beings in the audience and together they create the event of performance. It's one of life's most civilized experiences.
And I love the curtain calls. I know it is not considered cool to admit that, but I'm too old to be cool. Even when I'm not in the play, I enoy sitting backstage and hearing the call on the monitor, and then watch the actors sweep thru to their dressing rooms from the stage. They are raucous and loud, talking about what went wrong and what went right, was it a good or bad audience and whose costume ripped down the middle. They carry with them as they come offstage - heat - the heat of performance.
It has been said that an actor must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the courage and audacity of a lion and most importantly, the fragile vulnerability of an egg. It has also been said and I'm not sure by whom, that the moment of not knowing is the moment that has the greatest potential for creativity. The professional and private lives of most actors are filled to the brim with moments of not knowing.
It's tough to be an actor. But actors will do it anyway. They are survivors and will continue to strive because they have the need to celebrate, in performance, that sacred communion between actor and audience.
Actors get recognized all the time in the street or in the supermarket, but sometimes the people who recognize us don't know why they do. They think we're a long lost cousin or we sold a used car to them once in Minneapolis. We satisfy their curiousity by saying, "I am an actor," but I think all actors have some doubt about that statement. We're not really sure that we are actors, but we are sure that we are lifelong residents in the house of not knowing.