Quotes by Kenneth Tynan

“A critic is a man who knows the way but cant drive the car.”

“No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.”

“The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional. Although they conceal an essential orifice, these pointless globes are as near as the human form can ever come to abstract art.”

“Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.”

“A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.”

“The vengeful hag is played by Ingrid Bergman, which is like casting Eleanor Roosevelt as Lizzie Borden.”

“A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one.”

“A good many inconveniences attend playgoing in any large city, but the greatest of them is usually the play itself.”

“The sheer complexity of writing a play always had dazzled me. In an effort to understand it, I became a critic.”

“I just stopped playing bitches on wheels and peoples mothers. I have only a few more years to kick up my heels!”

“There is a hunger to see the human presence acted out. As long as that need remains, people will find a way to do theater.”

“It was an accident, although I’ve been involved in some kind of theatrical function or other since I was a child – in school, music, athletics. To me, acting is the most logical way for people’s neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves. To my way of thinking, an actor’s course is set even before he’s out of the cradle.”

“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they wont contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. Thats what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”

“Theater people are always pining and agonizing because theyre afraid that theyll be forgotten. And in America theyre quite right. They will be.”

“What the American public wants in the theater is a tragedy with a happy ending.”

“Unless the theatre can ennoble you, make you a better person, you should flee from it.”

Coming to New York from the muted mistiness of London, as I regularly do, is like travelling from a monochrome antique shop to a technicolor bazaar.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone. Among its many moods I especially cherish the chin commanding the chin in doubt and the chin at bay.

A critic is a man who knows the way but cant drive the car.