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Mark Ravenhill Quotes

Playwright

Mark Ravenhill, born on June 7, 1966, is a British playwright known for his sharp social commentary and experimental theatrical structures. His works have had a profound impact on contemporary theatre.

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All Candide Thinking Book Candid Play Stories World Different Form Ifs

Famous Mark Ravenhill Quotes

“Candide is one of those books I read when I was young and that I come back to regularly.”

Book Young Candide

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“It's a book that makes me laugh and think - it would be very hard to like someone who didn't enjoy Candide!”

Thinking Book Hard Would Be Enjoy Laughing Make Me Laugh Candide

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Also, everyone thinks they know Candide - you hear people described as 'Panglossian'. So if Candide appears on a poster, it feels familiar.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows Feels Familiar Posters Candide

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“There is a remarkable nimbleness of style, a balancing act of tone, in Voltaire, which is hard to bring off on stage. When you speak the words out loud, the effect is very different from when you read them. So one needs to do something new with a stage performance, not simply 'tell the story'.”

Needs Different Hard Stories Speak Effects Stage Style Performances Loud Tone Remarkable Something New Balancing Act Stage Performance

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“The American journalist Barbara Ehrenreich has written about this in her book Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World (2009) . She talks about the happiness industry, the rise of medication to make us happy and of self-help books, and the influence of all this on religion. In many ways religion has become another form of self-help. We all suffer from over-exposure to positive thinking.”

“In the business world, the idea of positive thinking is absolutely entrenched.”

Thinking World Ideas Positive Thinking Business World

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“The financial crisis happened because no-one could actually say out loud how bad things were.”

Happened Crisis Financial Loud Bad Things Financial Crisis

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“We are now so far advanced in our denial of evil that we want to rationalise it away.”

Want Evil Denial

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Twenty years ago, when you bumped into someone and asked how they were, they would say, 'Mustn't grumble' or 'Getting by': now they feel obliged to say 'Just great!'. In both cases, the reply is just a social nicety, but the framework has changed, it's as if it's become a social duty to express happiness.”

Ifs Feels Years Social Cases Changed Duty Years Ago Twenties Obliged Framework Niceties

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Optimism and happiness are not the same thing, but they are becoming interchangeable, and it seemed to me that Voltaire's Candide gave me a way into something important happening in modern-day culture.”

Way Important Culture Modern Becoming Happenings Optimism Modern Day Candide

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Rereading Candide, I was struck by the link between optimism and the optimal, the idea that we have been placed in this optimal world rather than some other.”

World Has Beens Ideas Optimism Links Optimal Candide Rereading

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Voltaire's novel [Candid] offers us parallel universes, the possibility of entering into alternative worlds existing side by side, and this is something quite modern. Nested narratives and parallel universes are popular at the moment in many different art forms.”

World Art Different Moments Form Universe Sides Novel Modern Possibility Offers Alternatives Narrative Entering Parallels Candid Parallel Universe

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Even within single sentences, there are sudden changes of register. And when the travellers go to Venice, they see a play by Voltaire! This is a novel [Candid] which has narratives within narratives, such as when Cunégonde recounts her story.”

Play Stories Novel Sentences Narrative Traveller Venice Register Candid Single Sentence Sudden Change

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“I have not chosen to create a linear story, but a series of different narratives: in the end there are five plays that almost, but don't quite, add up to one play... I start with the story of Candide, being performed as a play within a play, to bring the audience up to speed with the story.”

Different Ends Play Stories Audience Five Add Series Speed Chosen Narrative Linear Candide

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will.”

Character Choices Stage Philosophical Raises Theatre Free Will Philosophical Questions

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“There is the question of language. Although the play [Candid] is not written in strict verse form, there is an underlying beat of rhyming couplets, with echoes of Pope and the tradition of eighteenth-century philosophical verse.”

Play Form Language Written Century Beats Tradition Philosophical Verses Echoes Pope Strict Candid Rhyming Couplets

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“I have adapted the whole book [Candid] into tweets of 140 characters, and these are being sent out daily, at the rate of eight tweets per day .”

Book Whole Character Rate Eight Tweet Adapted Candid 140 Character

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“Translating Candide into tweets has really deepened my appreciation of his writing - it wouldn't work so well with nineteenth-century authors. Every single sentence in Voltaire seems to advance the story, and yet stand alone as a sound-bite.”

Writing Wells Stories Seems Sound Century Appreciation Sentences Bites Translate Tweet Nineteenth Century Stand Alone Really Deep Sound Bites Candide Single Sentence

Author:Mark Ravenhill

“The title's so upfront. It gives fair warning about the play's content. I'm writing about a kind of disenchantment, an anger, but quite a cool 90's anger, at a time when we're not very good at openly being angry. . . . I don't think I ever thought the title was titillating. I thought it was incredibly catchy. If the play is about the reduction in human relations down to a consumerist rationale, then thematically, the title is entirely linked into the thesis of the play.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Humans Kind Play Fairs Relation Angry Very Good Crafts Titles Warning Linked Reduction Human Relations Thesis Catchy Rationale Disenchantment

Author:Mark Ravenhill

About the Author

Born: June 7, 1966
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 19

Books & Sources

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