Curtain Speech, the author’s first collection, is partly a work of memoir, partly a dialogue with the theatre, and partly the diary of an actor in love with the performance of words. Voices and faces abound, belonging to the inhabitants of various stories and various stages. Adair is keenly mindful of the interplay between word and gesture and of the relationship between actor and role. Few relationships are as intimate or intense. An invited spirit inhabits the actor’s body, and for the short space of a show the character speaks through a borrowed throat and looks through borrowed eyes. But all performances inevitably end. What happens to these visiting spirits? They haunt the edges of an actor’s mind and soul, gazing back at her when she glances into a mirror, whispering in her ear when all else is silent. She carries them with her forevermore, partners to her self-making.
- Title: Curtain Speech: An Actor’s Poems About the Theatre
- Author: Ellen Adair
- Publisher: Pen & Anvil
- Year: 2019
- Boston, MA
- Condition: New
- Length: 182pp
- Dimensions: 6” x 9”
- ISBN: 9780982162569