The cost of art

Actors aren't the only ones who pay a price for their art. Most artists, in all forms and genres, do -- or do if they are serious and draw upon their most personal experiences in their work. More than once I've felt close to a nervous breakdown after finishing a work -- most recently, in fact, with "Oregon Dream". In the past I'd medicate the feelings with booze. Now I distract myself in other ways. But it can be exhausting and more to delve into the deep corners of memory and experience and fiddle with the ghosts there. The series of posthumous plays I've decided to do go there, which is why I don't want to have them done in my lifetime. Not because I don't want to see them -- I'm experienced enough to see them well on the stage of my mind -- but because I don't want to be asked to talk about them, interpret them, analyze them. I know the dance -- I've had over 40 plays produced, I know the dance damn well. This time around, I'm not dancing.

Here's some of David Edelstein's excellent commentary on this topic on Sunday Morning.

clipped from www.cbsnews.com Film actors are fragile, and if that sounds patronizing, well, it's meant to be: I am their patron, and so are you. In return for celebrity and riches and seemingly unlimited access to sex, our movie stars need only stay beautiful - which is hard - and wide open - which is harder. They have to switch off the defense mechanisms that keep the rest of us from imploding. It's no wonder they sometimes medicate themselves to death. In life, Ledger had license to act out too much, and it didn't help that he'd just finished playing the Joker in the upcoming Batman movie, "The Dark Knight" - a role in which he courted insanity, a wild, limitless freedom. What happened next we don't fully know. But Heath Ledger's death reminds us what a dangerous art this can be.