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A provocative, no-holds-barred, slap in the face to the traditional methods of acting, noted playwright, director and screenwriter David Mamet minces no words when it comes to the art of acting. Mamet's fierce opinions regarding various schools of acting are a breath of fresh air, and True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor is likely to polarize the current sentiments on how actors should prepare.
The main argument Mamet makes is that Stanislavski's "Method Acting" approach should be eliminated from acting schools -- and, in fact, acting schools themselves should be eliminated as well. I was blown away by the bold simplicity of his arguments, which fly in the face of everything I was taught in school. But in the end, I was won-over, as Mamet's insights are brilliant and true.
Terse and short, Mamet gets right to the point, but tends to repeat himself ... well, repeatedly ... which makes me wonder if he was really trying to hammer home his ideas, or if he was merely trying to fill pages -- the latter of which would be more surprising, considering his accomplishments as a writer.
This book obviously has a very specific audience in mind, so it is not recommended for everyone, but if you are interested in acting or are currently studying acting, pick this up. You won't regret it.
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"True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" Feature
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"True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" Overview
A guide to the acting profession by a leading American playwright. He advises aspiring actors on topics such as judging a role, approaching the part, working with the playwright, undertaking auditions, and the relationship with agents and the business in general.
"True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" Specifications
To hell with Stanislavsky. To hell with the Method. "The actor is onstage to communicate the play to the audience," says David Mamet. "That is the beginning and the end of his and her job. To do so the actor needs a strong voice, superb diction, a supple, well-proportioned body and a rudimentary understanding of the play." Anything else--"becoming" one's part, "feeling" the character's emotions--devalues the practice of a noble craft and is useless to the play. "The 'work' you do 'on the script' will make no difference," he cautions. "That work has already been done by a person with a different job title than yours. That person is the author."
But True and False does not confine itself to the work done on the actual stage. Its brief essays contain sound advice on how an actor might apply himself or herself to the life of the actor: the proper consideration due the audition process, the selection of parts that one accepts, and so on. Mamet delivers these kernels of wisdom in the taut, no-nonsense prose for which he is justifiably famous, and, ultimately, his core principles are applicable beyond the theater. "Speak up, speak clearly, open yourself out, relax your body, find a simple objective," he instructs. "Practice in these goals is practice in respect for the audience, and without respect for the audience, there is no respect for the theater; there is only self-absorption." Substitute "others" for "the audience" and "life" for "the theater," and could any Taoist say it better? --Ron Hogan
Customer Reviews
Some good thoughts - but a religious text, and essentially, wrong - Paul Smith -
Mamet's book is helpful to those lost in a religious admiration for at least the American "Actor's Studio" bastardization of Stanislavski's approach to acting and stagecraft. Otherwise, the books fails badly.
It's a pretty simple point, and Mamet's right: acting is action, and it is, or should be, ultimately, performed as an improvisational, living relationship between actors, and between the actor and his or her audience.
But he hoists himself on his own petard. If he seeks to skewer the slavish religion-making of many of today's "method" adherents, Mamet proceeds to make a religion of his point of view - taking a fairly simple point, and repeating it ad nauseum throughout the expanse of the book. After awhile, reading "acting is to act" in barely altered language with each protestation gets old.
And he's flat wrong in denying the validity of many, many other things in an actor's arsenal - what Mamet disparages as "funny voices," the externals captured to aid in the illusion of character-portrayal. Here it borders on the ridiculous. Yes, an actor ideally responds to the moment to moment reality of what is transpiring on stage, that night like no other; but his or her preparation includes a helluva lot more than "learn your lines cold, and act bravely...and that's it." This approach could be why I find so much of Mamet's work charged, but ultimately uninteresting.
To take an extreme example, imagine, if you will, approaching Shakespeare with only the words memorized "cold," and nothing else. The playing of Shakespeare IS the word, sailing on the poetry and meter while being as kinetically alive - and improvisationally "brave," to use Mamet's understanding - as possible. An actor eschewing either: a "meter reader" seeking sound over life, dead on stage to any living reality happening then and there; a "method" actor believing all that matters is subtext, yielding a performance utterly muddy, with a mere wash of emotion and "action," no sense of connection ON THE WORD. Either player will render poor Shakespeare or other verse drama. A good Shakespearean actor will be well-tuned to the music, but have a physical instrument keen and open to whatever transpires, then and there, in the playing of verse. Will sing, but not sing for singing's sake, but because only verse can convey the titanic richesse within the breast and soul of the character as written.
Mamet misses this entirely, and this is but one example. Basically, Mamet ignores that an actor uses all kinds of things. Usually, graced by an open and courageous spirit, a keen, observing eye, and the honor to seek to do what nature itself gives us, in all its panoply, an actor will bring to bear a host of things internal and external to convey the paradox, artifice more truthful than life. In doing so, and in preaching so stridently his line, Mamet does the very thing he criticizes so vehemently: He makes a religion of his point of view.
Basically, not only has Mamet apparently ignored all of Stanislavski's works past An Actor Prepares,** he would try to argue with a straight face that all of what makes any fiction interesting - I would argue, CHARACTER - is non-existent, on the stage.
He couldn't be more wrong. Ultimately, it's a shortsighted, failed effort.
** And this is where Strasberg did a huge disservice to both Stanislavski, and a generation of actors seeking the truth of Stanislavski's teachings...it ain't ALL "internal" navel-gazing, and Stanislavski never said it was....read his autobiography, My Life in Art, read his two other books outlining his approach - Being a Character and Creating a Role.
Very Insightful - John Watkins - Texas
I feel like every young actor who has a serious interest in going into the business professionally should read this book. Everyone you talk to has a friend who has an aunt who knows the maid of a broadway star who gives out advice as if they were Streisand or something. I get really sick of that kind of stuff really fast and this book talks very bluntly about the reality of acting on the stage and comes straight from the master, David Mamet.
If you are an actor, read this book. It changed my life and the way I think about the business and my craft for the better.
He's right, you're wrong - Pasquale R. DeFusco - Philadelphia, PA USA
Mamet's book shold be required reading for anyone who hopes to be an actor. It's the truest assessment of the actor's role I've ever read. Its many nay-sayers who have weighed in here are no doubt either acting "teachers" or self-absorbed, whiny actors who feel like they're not making "art" unless they've somehow "suffered" for it. Blah, blah, blah.
Read this book.
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