True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor PDF
Preview True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor
Acclaim for DAVID MAMET’s TRUE AND FALSE “Terrific … simply, beautifully expressed … really clears the air.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune “Entertaining and enlightening.… Mamet’s new book on the actor’s life makes me proud to be a participant in that life.” —Joe Mantegna “This is a very important book. No one has defined the actor’s job better than Mamet.” —William H. Macy “I agree with almost nothing Mr. Mamet says in this book and encourage you to devour every word. Mamet is a genius.” —Alec Baldwin DAVID MAMET TRUE AND FALSE David Mamet was born in Chicago in 1947 and studied at Goddard College in Vermont and at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York. He has taught at Goddard College, the Yale Drama School, and New York University, and lectures at the Atlantic Theater Company, of which he is a founding member. He was the first artistic director of Chicago’s St. Nicholas Theater Company, and has directed the films House of Games, Things Change, Homicide, Oleanna, and The Spanish Prisoner. Mamet was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Glengarry Glen Ross. His acclaimed plays and screenplays include Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and The Verdict, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. DAVID MAMET ALSO BY PLAYS The Cryptogram Oleanna Speed-the-Plow Bobby Gould in Hell The Old Neighborhood The Woods The Shawl and Prairie du Chien Reunion and Dark Pony and The Sanctity of Marriage The Poet and the Rent Lakeboat Goldberg Street Glengarry Glen Ross The Frog Prince The Water Engine and Mr. Happiness Edmond American Buffalo A Life in the Theater Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Duck Variations FICTION The Village The Old Religion NONFICTION The Cabin On Directing Some Freaks Make Believe Town Writing in Restaurants Three Uses of the Knife SCREENPLAYS Oleanna Glengarry Glen Ross We’re No Angels Things Change (with Shel Silverstein) Hoffa The Untouchables The Postman Always Rings Twice The Verdict House of Games Homicide Wag the Dog The Edge The Spanish Prisoner FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, MARCH 1999 Copyright © 1997 by David Mamet All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 1997. The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows: Mamet, David. True and false : heresy and common sense for the actor / David Mamet. p. cm. 1. Acting. I. Title. PN2061.M2265 1997 792′.028—dc21 97-19336 eISBN: 978-0-30780649-9 www.vintagebooks.com v3.1 The scientific approach to the phenomenon of human nature enables us to be ignorant without being frightened, and without, therefore, having to invent all sorts of weird theories to explain away our gaps in knowledge. — D. W. WINNICOTT Towards an Objective Study of Human Nature A magician is an actor impersonating a magician. — JEAN EUGÈNE ROBERT-HOUDIN CONTENTS Cover About the Author Other Books by This Author Title Page Copyright Epigraph To the Actor Some Thoughts Ancestor Worship A Generation That Would Like to Stay in School Scholarship Find Your Mark I’m on the Corner Business is Business Auditions Paint by Numbers “Work” Oral Interpretation Helping the Play Acceptance The Rehearsal Process The Play and the Scene Emotions Action Guilt Concentration Talent Habit The Designated Hitter Performance and Character The Villain and the Hero Acting “As If” “They Once Walked Among Us” Eleven O’Clock Always Comes Meritocracy
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