The Need for Theatricality

Almost everyone is interested in theatricality--because almost everyone wants to be funny; almost everyone wants to be dramatic; almost everyone wants to be better than everyone else. People have to perform. There is a need for theatricality in life. So, "Opening Night" was about the sense of theatricality in all of us and how it can take us over, how we can appear totally wrong on some little point, and we never know what that little point we are going to fight for. Divorces have been caused by little points, wars have been caused by little points, friendships have been broken on little points, and great success have been gathered on the basis of little things that don't appear very important to a mass public, but they are important to us. And I thought it was something worthwhile to make a movie about.

I think there's a pull and a push between whether you're an individual, as I feel right now, or whether you are a part of society, and I think we all are, all of us, pulled and pushed between these two things constantly. And you keep saying, "Do I want to be what I am?" or "Do I want to be part of society?' Myrtle has two selves. One was that background of Gena Rowlands's own personal life, of children, family, home, schooling; the problems of who you are and trying to fight for your own survival as you do all these other prescribed chores. The other is what you could be if none of these other things existed. The selfish, individual part of the person--your own mind's eye view of yourself--is to me the epitome of an actress. If you have no boundaries of commitment, you then could express so much. But in one sense, to me, its and anti-art film in that it says if you had your own way you wouldn't express a goddamn thing. If you had your total way. Actors, or writers, have to work under this duress. You can't be tortured, your ears can't be torn off, your mustache pulled out hair by hair.