Whether Beethoven knew that the power of the "Hammerklavier" derives in part from performers struggling with it or whether he was oblivious to those struggles is an interesting question.

After a while the sides of the box fall away to reveal the performer struggling to escape the manacles.

Sometimes a scrim is used instead of a curtain and, with back lighting, it is arranged that the audience see the silhouetted shadow of the performer struggling to escape before the spikes fall.

In "My Week with Marilyn," Williams plays Monroe as an insecure performer struggling to establish herself as a genuine actress rather than a movie star sexpot just a couple of years before "Some Like It Hot."

Mr. Homberger does not only sing the parts in German, but he also sings them as they might be sung by an international potpourri of performers struggling with Mozart's language; a diva from Houston, a soprano from Bratislava, a bombastic German baritone.

But performers struggling to keep their creative edge, and credibility with their audiences, are pulled by the communities where their talent took root.