Intermission » Process

Lilly on Needing Long Days to Write

Intermission — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 10:30:19 +0000

Many writers work best in times of trouble: no money, the cold outside and in, even sickness and the end in view. But I have always known that when trouble comes I must face it fast and move with speed, even though the speed is thoughtless and sometimes damaging. For such impatient people, calm is necessary for hard work—long days, months of fiddling is the best way of life.

An Evening with Lillian Hellman, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 27, No. 7, April 1974, p.22

Lilly on Writing in Fragments

Intermission — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:20:13 +0000

Watch on the Rhine is the only play I have ever written that came out in one piece, as if I had seen a landscape and never altered the trees or the seasons of their colors. All other work for me had been fragmented, hunting in an open field with shot from several guns, following the course but unable to see clearly.

An Evening with Lillian Hellman, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 27, No. 7, April 1974, p.21

Lilly on Theatre Criticism

Intermission — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:08:35 +0000

Mr. Alfred: Did you ever find newspaper criticism of your work helpful?
Miss Hellman: Not at all. Never.

An Evening with Lillian Hellman, Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 27, No. 7, April 1974, p.28

[Mr. Alfred = William Alfred, Professor of English at Harvard.]

Lilly on Hearing Your Words Aloud

Intermission — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:11:53 +0000

Sometimes you’re pleased, and the words take on meanings they didn’t have before, larger meanings. But sometimes it is the opposite. There is no rule. I don’t have to tell you that speech on the stage is not the speech of life, not even the written speech….I usually know in the first few days of rehearsal what I have made actors stumble over, and what can or cannot be cured.

Lillian Hellman, The Art of Theatre No. 1, Paris Review, Issue 33, Winter-Spring 1965

Lilly on Waiting For Ideas for Plays

Intermission — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 10:35:19 +0000

I’m one of the few writers in the world who has few ideas ever. I just have to wait for them to arrive. Other people have countless back ideas they are always using. I have none. I have no idea why this is. I just have to wait for a new one to come.

Conversations with Lillian Hellman, p.106