With David Mamet's latest play, "November," opening this week at the Phoenix
Theatre, I was interested in reading the acclaimed playwright's latest words on his art.
What I found in his recent book "True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" a gauntlet thrown in the face of acting schools and teachers.
Some specifics:
"...the life of the academy, the graduate school, the studio, while charming and comfortable, are as removed from the life (and the job) of the actor as aerobics are from boxing."
"Part of the requirement of a life in the theatre is to stay out of school."
"The Stanislavsky 'Method,' and the technique of the schools derived from it, is nonsense. It is not a technique out of the practice of which on deelops a skill--it is a cult."
"Preoccupation with effect is preoccupation with the self, and not only is it joyless, it's a waste of time."
"Students, of course, do need a place to develop. That place is upon the stage."
There are more specific comments in the book, of course. This is just a taste. (FYI: One of my favorite quote in the book comes in a blurb by Alec Baldwin: "I agee with almost nothing Mr. Mamet saysin this book and encourage you to devour every word.")
Mamet's comments raise tons of questions, including:
--Are we overloaded with acting schools--and with actors? Mamet suggests in the book that these schools are largely a way to keep non-working actors busy. Are they merely a waste of time and money?
--How important is acting training? Having seen plenty of cringe-worthy amateur work, my first thought is: the more training the better. Yet I truly have no idea how trained most actors I see actually are. Is the work itself the best educator?
--If the academy is such a bad place, why have some of the most compelling productions I've seen recently been on college stages?
I'd love to hear from actors, acting teachers, and the theatergoing audience on any or all of the above.
Your thoughts?
What I found in his recent book "True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" a gauntlet thrown in the face of acting schools and teachers.
Some specifics:
"...the life of the academy, the graduate school, the studio, while charming and comfortable, are as removed from the life (and the job) of the actor as aerobics are from boxing."
"Part of the requirement of a life in the theatre is to stay out of school."
"The Stanislavsky 'Method,' and the technique of the schools derived from it, is nonsense. It is not a technique out of the practice of which on deelops a skill--it is a cult."
"Preoccupation with effect is preoccupation with the self, and not only is it joyless, it's a waste of time."
"Students, of course, do need a place to develop. That place is upon the stage."
There are more specific comments in the book, of course. This is just a taste. (FYI: One of my favorite quote in the book comes in a blurb by Alec Baldwin: "I agee with almost nothing Mr. Mamet saysin this book and encourage you to devour every word.")
Mamet's comments raise tons of questions, including:
--Are we overloaded with acting schools--and with actors? Mamet suggests in the book that these schools are largely a way to keep non-working actors busy. Are they merely a waste of time and money?
--How important is acting training? Having seen plenty of cringe-worthy amateur work, my first thought is: the more training the better. Yet I truly have no idea how trained most actors I see actually are. Is the work itself the best educator?
--If the academy is such a bad place, why have some of the most compelling productions I've seen recently been on college stages?
I'd love to hear from actors, acting teachers, and the theatergoing audience on any or all of the above.
Your thoughts?
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I can tell you of a few performances I've observed locally where certain highly educated (and well-known) actors who were known to embrace certain methods seemed so wrapped up in the method that they missed the whole point of what they were doing, IMHO.
So I don't think there's a hard and fast rule. I prefer to learn by doing -- but I sure miss those IRT master classes.
As to schools for actors and other performance artists...I teach a graduate level storytelling class for the School of Library and Information Science at IUPUI. I learn from my students and I learned a lot, and continue to learn, from my own teachers. I get what Mamet is saying about the falseness of the classroom or studio - are my students really prepared to share a story in front of a large group of children, or teenagers, or board members, or senior citizens, if all they have told to is other library school students? - but I do think that formal training can be very useful to a performer, especially in terms of grounding her (or him) in the history, theory, ethics, current practices, and current issues in her craft.
However, I agree that school is not enough. In fact, it is not even essential. Papa Joe, an oral tradition storyteller based in New Hampshire, says that the way to become a better storyteller is to tell stories more. 'Simple as that.
He also says that rehearsing a story at home by yourself is all well and good, but it's just practicing. It's not storytelling. The real learning, the real progress, comes from sharing stories with other people and learning from their reactions to your telling.
Years ago, Indianapolis teller Ken Oguss gave me some useful lessons in how to tell using a microphone, but he said that ultimately a teller is like a pilot, and there is no substitute for logging flight time in front of an audience. Some flights will be more satisfying than others, but you've got to just keep getting up there.
And yet another professional storyteller, Heather Forest, always tells beginning tellers to plan to still be telling 25 years from now. In other words, don't think you're done after one workshop. Or one master's program. Or whatever.
I think all this is true of acting, as well.
As an audience member, I absolutely can tell the difference between the actors who are humbled by the complexity of their craft and committed to continually improving their mastery of it....and the people who are not. However, the two groups do not always divide neatly according to academic training or lack thereof.
Hope Baugh
www.IndyTheatreHabit.com
I think that training is a great thing, if you are being trained by people who really know how to teach. I think that sometimes the best teachers are not those who necessarily have been trained by the top facilities, but those who have the ability to bring out the best of what lies inside each particular student/performer. I am sure that everyone who has been trained in theatre has a story about a teacher who has a huge resume and taught them nothing, if you throw musical theatre in the mix you can have teachers that can actually damage voices by trying to force a particular method. In my opinion, the ability to perform is something that you are born with and if you find teachers, directors, workshops,etc. along the way that pull out the best in you and don't try to make you a brown couch, if you are a blue couch that is the best that you can hope for. For some that might be Juliard and for some that might be your best friend who isn't involved in the theatre, but really knows you and can give you great ideas when you ask them to give their opinion on your newest audition piece. I will have to say that, to me, there is no better triaining than being on the stage with amazing actors and being directed and/or choreographed by top notch talent. I have learned more from that than any of my training in school. Now were those talented folks trained by a particular method???? The story continues..