Love Quote by Harvey Fierstein

Theatre, Fierstein insists, is less a dream than a repeating, high-stakes labor contract you renew with your body every night. As an actor who’s lived both the glamour and the grind, he strips the romance down to its schedule: six days a week, eight shows, same lines, same marks, same emotional turns. The triple "really" is doing its own stage work here, mimicking the pep talk you give yourself when the novelty has died and you’re still hauling yourself to the call board.

The intent is partly gatekeeping, partly mercy. He’s warning newcomers that passion isn’t a cute accessory in theatre; it’s the only durable fuel when your life is structured around other people’s evenings. "Unmerciful" isn’t just about exhaustion. It’s about the industry’s indifference: the show goes on whether you’re sick, heartbroken, or bored, and the audience expects transcendence on a timetable. That’s the cruel joke and the sacred bargain.

The subtext is an argument against the myth of effortless artistry. Repetition sounds like stagnation until you remember what live performance demands: precision without deadness, consistency without automation. The "exact same thing" is never exactly the same because the room changes, your scene partner changes, you change. Fierstein frames love as a discipline, not a mood. If you don’t adore the work itself - not the applause, not the identity, not the idea of being an actor - the routine will eat you alive.