Oscar Wilde? Thornton Wilder? Frank Capra? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: A prominent playwright once said: I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
This statement has been attributed to Thornton Wilder who wrote the plays “Our Town” and “The Skin of Our Teeth”. It has also been credited to Oscar Wilde who wrote the plays “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Lady Windermere’s Fan”. Would you please explore this topic and find a citation?
Reply from Quote Investigator: In 1957 “The Paris Review” published an interview with Thornton Wilder during which he said the following. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
I regard the theater as the greatest of all art-forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. This supremacy of the theater derives from the fact that it is always “now” on the stage. It is enough that generations have been riveted by the sight of Clytemnestra luring Agamemnon to the fatal bath, and Oedipus searching out the truth which will ruin him.
QI has found no substantive evidence that Oscar Wilde employed this expression. He died in 1900, and he received credit by 2006.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1958 “The English Journal” reprinted a set of quotations from the book “Writers at Work” which contained material from “The Paris Review”. Here were three items. The ellipses appeared in the journal text:2
WILLIAM FAULKNER: “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art… . If (he) has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of old ladies.”
THORNTON WILDER: “I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms….”
GEORGES SIMENON: “I don’t think writing is a profession . . . but a vocation of unhappiness.”
Unsurprisingly, artists extoll the art forms in which they excel. The popular U.S. filmmaker Frank Capra wrote the following in his 1971 autobiography “The Name Above the Title”:3
Regardless of frontiers, regardless of national, political, or ethnical differences, filmmakers all over the world are united by a common bond: apprenticeship in the greatest of all the art forms—FILM.
We all have the same artistic and technical problems; all create entertainment responsive to the same human emotions, and all respect our peers and adore our betters.
In 1989 “The Writer’s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the 20th Century’s Preeminent Writers” included excerpts from the 1957 interview with Thornton Wilder:4
The Greek tragic poets wrote for edification, admonition, and even for our political education. The comic tradition in the theater carries the intention of exposing folly and curbing excess: Only in Shakespeare are we free of hearing axes ground… I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
In 2006 a columnist in the “El Paso Times” of Texas attributed a version of the remark to a different playwright:5
Playwright Oscar Wilde once said the theater is the greatest of all art forms because it’s the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
In 2010 the book “I Got In!: The Ultimate College Audition Guide for Acting and Musical Theater” attributed the remark to Wilde:6
In the middle of writing this book, I went to an exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art entitled “All The World’s A Stage: Celebrating Performance in the Visual Arts.” This well-known Oscar Wilde quote was included in the exhibit: “I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it means to be human.”
In conclusion, Thornton Wilder deserves credit for the statement he made during an interview with “The Paris Review” in the Winter 1957 issue. The link to Oscar Wilde is unsupported.
Image Notes: Theater masks depicting Comedy and Tragedy from Clker-Free-Vector-Images at Pixabay.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Corinne Proctor whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1957 Winter, The Paris Review, Volume 4, Number 15, The Art of Fiction XVI, Interview with Thornton Wilder, Start Page 36, Quote Page 47, The Paris Review Inc., Paris ,France. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1958 April, The English Journal: The High School Organ of the National Council of Teachers of English, Volume 47, Number 4, Fiction Writers View Their Art, Quote Page 211, The National Council of Teachers of English, Champaign, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1971, Frank Capra: The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography by Frank Capra, Part 2: Struggle with Success, Chapter 11: The Common Bond, Quote Page 205, The Macmillan Company, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1989, The Writer’s Chapbook: A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit, and Advice from the 20th Century’s Preeminent Writers, Edited by George Plimpton, Part 3: Different Forms, Chapter: On Theater, Person: Thornton Wilder, Quote Page 268, Viking Penguin: A Division of Penguin Books, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2006 April 29, El Paso Times, Beto’s Picks by Humberto J. Vergara, Quote Page 3D, Column 1, El Paso, Texas. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 2010 Copyright, I Got In!: The Ultimate College Audition Guide for Acting and Musical Theater by Mary Anna Dennard, Section: Introduction, Quote Page 11, Mary Anna Dennard Inc. collegeauditioncoach.com. (Verified with scans) ↩︎