Word: brights
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...appropriate word. Long before she saw her first play, Marian Seldes knew she would become an actress. Recently, she became an author as well. The Bright Lights: A Theatrical Life is not the autobiography of a famous person, because "I'm not famous." Nor is it a book of Theatrical Celebrities gossip, though memories of Tallulah Bankhead and Laurence Olivier fill the pages. Instead, The Bright Lights interweaves anecdotes with analysis to describe "a lifetime of work in the theatre." The work ranges from the triumph of Equus, which offered the change to act with three stars--Anthony Hopkins, Anthony...
...plan the book, though. For 15 years, she kept a notebook on every production, doubting her words would ever be published. The first draft of The Bright Lights emerged over a four-month period of continuous work. Seldes bubbles with enthusiasm for her editor, Jonathan Galassi--"his very youth was an asset"--and for the contributions of an editor in general. In contrast to the relationship between an actor and a director, an editor is "like another self, another set of eyes"; "no interference"impedes his rapport with the writer. An actor and his director, on the other hand...
Seldes wanted to obtain an effect of different "tempos" in her writing, to avoid the monotonous quality she feels many memoirs possess. The tone of The Bright Lights ranges from philosophical to comical to lyrical. In this sense, the book mirrors its author: as The Bright Lights shifts narrative moods in a matter of paragraphs, so Seldes shifts personal moods in a matter of minutes...
...succeed in this fast-changing, low-margin business, a fellow has to be nimble. Says Jack Neuman, 45, who raises corn, soybeans and hogs in Sangamon County, Ill.: "It used to be that if you had a child who wasn't too bright, you'd say, 'Son, you're going to be a farmer.' Nowadays, if that dumb kid comes along volunteering to farm...
...Bright Flows the River, Caldwell