"Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they're afraid that they'll be forgotten. And in America they're quite right. They will be"

Agnes de Mille’s words tap into the deep-seated anxieties that haunt those who dedicate their lives to the theater. Actors, directors, and choreographers devote themselves to an art form defined by impermanence, a performance is born, lives, and vanishes in the span of a night, sustained only by memory and, sometimes, the odd review or playbill. The pining and agonizing reflect this transient existence. Unlike films or novels, which persist and can be revisited, the essence of theater is ephemeral; a show’s final curtain is truly an ending, and its effect must be carried within those who witnessed it.

She sharply asserts that American theater artists fear that they will be forgotten, and validates the fear: in America, she claims, they are right. What underlies this is not only the fleeting nature of performance, but also a cultural context where theater is not the primary artistic medium. In the United States, the arts that enjoy broad, lasting recognition, like cinema, television, and recorded music, are those that can be consumed repeatedly. Theater, unfortunately, does not fit neatly into this paradigm.

De Mille might be lamenting a lack of cultural memory, where the contributions of theater people evaporate even as they have shaped the soul of a nation. She nods to the painful chasm between creation and remembrance: these artists pour heart and soul into their work, but their legacy is often unmarked, their names lost to all but historians and the most ardent devotees. The quote also captures a sense of realism bordering on resignation. De Mille is unsparing: she does not sugarcoat with comforting platitudes. The struggle for artistic immortality, especially in the context of American theater, is inherently Sisyphean. Yet in articulating this truth, she grants these artists a paradoxical immortality, acknowledging their longing, voicing their anguish, and, in doing so, remembering them.