True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor

Mamet is an infuriating author. He calls Stanislavski a "hack," and yet his system is based upon a part of Stanislavski's system: the actor's objective.Mamet derides acting schools, and yet the Atlantic Theater has an actor training program based upon the system that he devised. It's as if his system is the one "correct" one. (If Mamet were religious, he would make a great Baptist.)Mamet's method is exclusive- it only provides for actor's working on a written text. What about actor's who are creating a piece of theatre? How are they to analyze their lines and find an objective? What if there are no lines? What if it is a piece based on sound and rhythm?Mamet could pose very good answers to all of these questions. So could I. This is merely to demonstrate that Mamet seems to argue that everything he says is the truth with absoloute finality. Mamet is an infuriating author.But the infuriation is well worth it. By forcing us to question our ideas about acting, school, etc. -- Mamet is doing a lot of good. Read this book. Be outraged. Be challenged. Question, think, and either you'll have been enlightened by Mamet or you'll come out having reinforced your own ideas.It's a concise, lively read. Cheers!

This book--another fit of didacticism from a writer of highly uneven output--is a bracing experience. Mamet's thoughts are so simplistic, his tone so dogmatic, that he provokes you to define your own thinking more sharply. I therefore recommend the book highly.I'd like to share one observation, out of the many that this book provoked in me: Mamet's own preference, it seems, is the flat, uninflected acting in most of his films. Compare, for instance, Lindsay Crouse's beautifully emotional work in Sidney Lumet's THE VERDICT with her strangely robotic work in Mamet's HOUSE OF GAMES. The disparity between the two performances--one directed by the Actors Studio-trained Lumet, the other directed by the virulently anti-method Mamet--points up a central, yet unacknowledged, truth: Mamet is advocating a particular style of acting. This style results from the action-oriented approach that he and his followers employ, but it is no more or less a style than that produced by the method techniques he decries. This may seem a minor point, but it is one that he would hotly deny, as he insists that he advocates a technique and not a style.I should add that the book contains a number of incisive thoughts on ethics and professionalism. So valuable were these that I typed them up and put them on my wall. They kept me sane through a difficult summer with a professional theatre company. The book is worth its price for these alone.

I first bought this book while hanging out with a fellow actor friend of mine. We got on the NYC subway and started to read the books we'd just bought. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I was shocked, almost dismayed - but, oh so thankful. I felt the need to share these lines with my friend. He instantly called Mamet a heretic. "How dare he ? Why are you reading this ?" Two months later, I gave him a copy as a gift. I urged him to read it. A week later, he thanked me from the bottom of his heart.Why am I telling you this long story ? Because this book about smacking you in the face. You'll either appreciate it, or hate Mamet to death for it. But know that it's done with noble intentions. Actors are taught some truly silly techniques and habits. As a result, we are robbing ourselves of the dignity of what we do. And while Mamet reminds us that this artform was saved by people who basically wanted to make a living at doing "not much", there IS a dignity to it.I don't think he's seeking an overthrow of everything we hold dear. I think he's trying to teach us the absurdity of some of our actions by being absurd in his repsonses to it. "Stanislavski was a hack" is his call to action, not revolution.Read this book. Enjoy it with a grain of salt. And claim the dignity to break the silly habits you've learned to take on. I have. And the five friends I've bought this book for haven't stopped thanking me for it.

No other author, from Hagen to Meisner to Strasberg, has captured the art of acting so simply, so quickly (127 pages), or so truthfully. I hated this controversial book when I first read it (surely, Stanislavsky is turning over in his grave), but after much thought and practice and observation, I must admit that the art of acting really is, and must be, as simple as Mamet makes it. This truly is the only book on acting that a professional must read.

I started reading this book with a highlighter in hand, just in case anything jumped out at me. At the end of my read, 80% of the book was yellow!As an actor and director, I have myself felt bound by techniques and seen fellow actors I've directed get trapped by the limitations of "being in the moment" and feeling inadequate about their work.Mamet, I believe, respects the actor enough to encourage the actor to remove these trappings and focus on their simple task. Not that acting isn't tough work, but we invariably make it much harder than it need be.Mamet pulls no punches. If you subscribe to the "method", "sense memory", or other schools of acting, this book will offend you as Marilyn Manson might offend a Christian Coalition leader.There is no middle ground here. You'll either feel liberated as an actor, or want to hurl this book into the closest bonfire. As for myself, I have a clearer vision of the actor's place in the world, and am performing and directing with more clarity and consistency than ever before. I owe this to Mr. Mamet.