Live and animal

An article in today's Guardian about improvised theatre caught my attention, linking the liveness of exciting theatre/performance and the animal.

"In Improbable," he {Lee Simpson, co-artistic director} says, "we recently had the thought that really good theatre is like a shy deer you coax onto the stage. But if you ask it the wrong question or even just get an odd feeling, it bolts.

"Now, one way of solving that is just to say, 'Fuck it. If we shoot it and stuff it, it'll be on stage every night.' It'll be stuffed and dead. But it'll look like a deer. So that's the choice. Would you rather have a stuffed deer every single night? Or would you rather try coaxing the living, breathing deer on stage, in the full knowledge that there will be nights when it just runs away and won't come back?".

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/story/0,,2282516,00.html