Mrs. Pat

"So you think the actor makes no contribution beyond that of a puppet for six nihts a week and two mantinee's. Do you, Mr. - ah - rewrite your play every day to suit the audience out ther? Be so good as not to treat us as automata, we are more in touch with reality than most - we and the doctors and nurses and clergymen who are confronted by the heart of it daily. Why are actors so dismissed? Is the surgeon harassed when he loses a patient, the lawyer booed when the case goes against him? In all other professions maturity confers status, security, respect. Why, I ask myself, why the rancour against us? Perhaps it is because we promise more than rubies - food fo the imaginatio."