Rating: 
Summary: It's hard for a very short book to be repetitive....
Review: ... but this one is. It's repeats within itself, and within Mamet's larger body of work. The book, while not arranged as such, is probably half motivation, half craft-based. The former stuff is interesting, and can focus one where needed. But the latter portion contains information that is better expressed in the more useful and tangible "A Practical Handbook For The Actor", which was written by six of Mamet's former performers who worked with Mamet (and it's a book that I use in my high school class). This volume, though, is quite impractical -- he dismisses the need to impress those who hire actors ("the actor does not have employers"). This statement might stroke the arrogance of the actor, but it also might have one out of work for a time. And, he also dismisses those who act as a "hobby". Thus, an actor must be "true" and not bend to the producer and casting person. But if one doesn't do that, jobs will come from.....? There are some good comments in this loosely-bound book. One could create a 10 Commandments For The Actor from scouring this text and they would be very useful. But they would fit in a pamphlet, or on a large bookmark, as they take up a very small portion of this book. As for the rest it? It is no more than, using Mamet's words, a bunch of "black marks on a page".
Rating: 
Summary: Remember it is only one persons point of view
Review: A must read for anyone involved in the theatre.But one must remember that it is only one persons point of view. One must understand Stanislavsky to vilify the man, which Mamet just does. Hail the new God of Theatre with his action to play.
Rating: 
Summary: Profound and Silly.
Review: A very good book insofar as an expose of The Method. Mamet is an excellent critic but a muddled theoretician and his advice ends up sounding as dogmatic as Stanislavsky and as reductionist as Strassberg.Lee's "Method" appropiated one of Stanislavsky's early theories and absorbed all of the others into it, unintentinally (?) giving them secondary status. This theory was and is 'Affective Memory' ( or as Mamet refers to it , the acting equivalent of 'paint-by-the numbers') wherein an actor would remember experiences that had moved him in his past and then tie them or substitute them to the character he was portraying them to infuse it with 'truth'. Interestingly, 99% of Affective Memory exercises deal with past pain: Your father's death, your sister's suicide, uncle Ethelbert molesting you in the closet when you were 9, etc. This leads to some bummed out acting sessions and practising guru-psychoanalyst-con men. (I refer to Harold Clurman's remarks on Lee as quoted in 'Acting without Agony' by Don Richardson ) and more importantly to a new convention as artificial as the 19th century's dictum that an actor should not turn his back on the audience while exiting the stage; namely the dogma of REAL TEARS. Method loons are fond of contrasting 'indicating' which is bad with 'truthfulness' which is neato, and the yardstick generally employed is REAL TEARS. Thus whether you're playing Hamlet in his "O What a rogue" speech or Felix Ungar in The Odd Couple in the scene where he shows a photograph of his family to the two cuties, the scene specifies weeping and thus the true actor will cry REAL TEARS. Never mind that one's a classical drama and the other's a comedy, that's irrelevent and The Method wants you to cry. So go to class, remember personal tragedies, and suffer agony for art's sake. Mamet makes fun of this lunacy and defends the primacy of the play, of the written word. Acting is after all, an interpretive, performing, and secondary art to writing. Here he is on solid ground , following Bertol Brecht's gripe that Stanislavskian actors mangled the author's work just so they could commit an "emotional striptease" on the stage. But what advice does he offer instead? Well there are some 'common sense' gems such as his request not to indulge in "Funny Voices" and to let the audience teach you, rather than stay in school/studio/labs/workshops forever. But after all is said and done, he goes back to "that hack" Stanislavsky and his famous saying that the person you are is infinitely more interesting that any character you could act. Thus he ultimately advises stepping out on stage as yourself, picking a simple objective (which will give 'the illusion' of the character) and BEING BRAVE. This is a wee bit silly since characters are not created quite THAT simply. At the risk of repetition, it is as reductionist of Stanislavsky as anything Lee ever came up with. Mamet, like Brecht and unlike say, William Saroyan or Anton Chekhov is not exactly known for the warmth of his characters. Perhaps this has something to do with his attitude. For a far less vehement and more constructive ctitique try "The End of Acting" by Richard Hornby.
Rating:
Summary: True and False - the title says it all
Review: All the years I spent in acting schools did not prepare me for this much-maligned book. In True and False : Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor, David Mamet takes down the establishment (so to speak) and lays bare his common sense approach to acting. In doing so, he also makes his love for actors and acting clear. The playwright/director/novelist attacks acting schools, casting directors and "the method" among other institutions in his tirade against all the counter-productive, anti-creative issues that American actors have been plagued with for decades. There are things in this book that may send you screaming from the room, but it is beneficial for any actor to read what this prolific theatre artist has to say about our profession, our craft, and us as artists. A must read for all actors, especially those pursuing a professional career.
Rating: 
Summary: Speak the Speech with an Attitude
Review: An odd passage catches your eye in the first pages of True and False, which in a sense is not just Mamet's manifesto on acting and a proper way of life in the performing arts, but a manifesto as to the nature of narrative, and hence a view to most of his output. He writes: "Most of us, in the course of a day or a week, treat ourselves to the fantasy of the Bad News at the Doctor's Office in which we are invited to sit and hear our fate. And in that fantasy we are stoical and simple, and that is of course what makes the fantasy so pleasing to indulge in- we wait to hear the verdict on our future bravely."
Now, I can't say this has ever crossed my mind daily, weekly or in the course of a year. When last given bad news by a doctor I was irritable, to say the least, and stoicism was not uppermost in my mind - my aching limbs more probably were - but to Mamet this position of a macho virtue is central.
Mamet's principal point in True and False is that there is no magic, no emotion: "The actor does not need to "become" the character. The phrase, in fact, has no meaning. There is no character. There are only lines upon a page. They are lines of dialogue meant to be said by the actor. When he or she says them simply, in an attempt to achieve an object more or less like that suggested by the author, the audience sees an illusion of a character upon the stage." And, later, it is back to the machismo virtue: "An apprenticeship spent looking inward for supposed "emotion", while perhaps spent with honest motives, trains one only to be a gull. An actor should never be looking inward. He or she must keep the eyes open to see what the other actor is doing... To face the world is brave. To turn outward rather than inward and face the world which you would have to face in any case - such may not win the day, but it will always allow you to live the day as an adult." So any of Mamet's characters, like the actor, and presumably Mamet, are all alike in their predicament - they may not be successful but they are trying to face outward, to keep their eyes open, and take it like a man. What Simon Callow, one critic of Mamet's acting critique, says is that people come to the theatre to see character, on stage, not the author's lines, and it is creating character that actors are paid for. With a view to both Mamet's novel and movies, it must be said that he has a point. Now, Callow, in a book of his own, the biography of the actor Charles Laughton, distinguished actors into two schools - those of Olivier and Laughton. Olivier worked from the outside, putting together a character out of bits and bobs - a nose here, a mustache there, a pair of shoes - and "swimming between these things" he said, he eventually found a creature. This is acting by instinct, not really technique, though Olivier was much regarded as artificial, and Mamet, by his theory, would not approve. The other school, Laughton's, finds the character within their own voluminous parade of sins and pulls, from within their capacious trove of maladies, a timbre or attitude akin to that they find before them in the role. That too, Mamet would not approve. Mamet sometimes presents actors with a type, with an intention and a list of objectives which - by his theory - should be enough to play with bravery - but the bravery is not a personality, it is not alive. It is not finally an expression of the individual, just a stare of fear. Mamet cites, as the rewards of his career in theatre and film, a series of personal high-points: meeting Jose Ferrer ("the greatest every Cyrano"), walking across a room to chat up a gorgeous slim readhead with her back to him to find it was Lillian Gish, who talked to him for half an hour about "Mr. Griffiths", getting advice about his first screenplay through Bob Rafaelson, the director, from Sam Rafaelson, the director's uncle and author of the first talky screenplay. These people that he mentions, that he worships, and whose respect is what he claims to work for, are personalities finally, not an attitude to fear. They are collections of tics, prevailing in the face of a general inclination to downward slide. Likewise in Wag the Dog, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro won great acclaim for playing, respectively, an overblown Hollywood producer and a political advisor. Hoffman's performance, and in part Mamet's very witty characterisation in the script, are widely thought to be based on the personality of the scandal sized producer Robert Evans. De Niro's performance in the larger and in many ways less colourful role of the low-key political advisor is all in the slouch of a particularly rumpled hat on a crumpled face, it's all in the way he disappears in a deckchair. This is not action, as Mamet would call it, this is nuance, personal charm.
What Mamet in life and his best work recognizes is the immediacy of the individual - there is no American writer more accutely alert to the half beats and consonants of a casual word - but what he fails in his philosophy, this novel and SOME work to acknowledge is that no system and no attitude will actually survive more than the subtle spark, the twist of personal quirk hard not to recall, the personal grace. And that is all that will survive and all they will remember, however you hash the fear up and however you face the day. At the end only your self, not your good face will matter, what sparked care. All that survives of us is love.
Rating:
Summary: Not a How-To; A Why-To
Review: As a (sometime) working actor, I found Mamet's stimulating screed to be both True and False. There is no doubt the ultimate focus of an actor should be upon the skillful presentation of a playwright's/screenwriter's work to an audience. It is also true that some actors become overly attached to the Method, focusing on its nuances and their own emotions to an extreme degree. Every actor is familiar with the Method addict who will have her emotional "moment" on stage regardless of its appropriateness. We are also familiar with those who are experts at the Mirror Exercise, but have never gone on an audition. Mamet skillfully tears these masturbaters and not-quite-actors to pieces.
But Mamet's focus on the abusers of the Method risks misleading the inexperienced as to its usefulness as a tool. HOW does one skillfully interpret a David Mamet play for an audience? HOW does one allow one's soul to intermix with the playwright's work such that life is breathed into it? Courage is certainly an important pre-requisite to any art form, but it does not in and of itself create a skillful artist. A strong, supple body and a well-trained voice are additional pre-requisites to skillful presentation by the actor, but these are possessed by every television "news" anchor. Mamet fails to address the additional skills an actor need develop in order to skillfully interpret plays and scripts.
He is a brilliant writer and director, but Mamet is also known to be both a failed actor and a bit of an egomaniac. It would seem he is attempting to reduce the actor to a mere mouthpiece for his genius. This is the same crime Mamet correctly nails bad Method actors for committing. In the end, theater is a COLLABORATIVE art: actors, playwrights, and directors all must keep an eye on the final product and resist the temptation to use the stage as a trumpet for their own gifts. Given the wonderful (and decidedly non-mouthpiece-like) actors Mamet has selected to perform his works, he seems to realize this. It is unfortunate his artist's intuition was not better conveyed in "True and False."
Rating:
Summary: Question everyting!
Review: At a time when I was feeling frustrated with the business of acting, a friend recommended this book. I hate acting schools because I never feel like I learn anything other than what that teacher happens to like or dislike. This book was a conduit for that frustration. Whether you agree with him or not, as an actor, you should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing and Inspiring
Review: Being a college acting student, I was initialy turned off by Mamet's insistence that studying theatre in college simply buys time for actors who aren't really serious about their craft and brave enough to delve right into it. While I do not believe this is true, I, like other readers, have highlighted dozens of quotes from this book, typed them up and taped them to my wall. I do not suggest that actors throw out all the conventional learnings about the craft that they have acquired and blindly subscribe to Mamet's teachings...but I do highly reccomend that all actors read this concise, refreshing take on the state of American theatre training and gather from it what you may....one line may ring true...or the whole book...but there is surely something to be learned here by any reader wise enough to pick up "True and False".
Rating:
Summary: Non-traditional view of the craft of acting
Review: Being an actress who has trained through the ritualized methods such as Stanislavsky, et al, I found this to be a refreshingly bold and realistic approach to acting. Mamet's reputation validates the reliability of his personal opinions and proves that no actor has to conform to a creative process that the industry has established as "the right way of doing things". Simply put, each actor should have his own customized process that enables him to properly achieve his character's objective. He should not be made to feel that he lacks skill, creativity, knowledge or talent because he does not adhere to the established "methods". Mamet tells it like it really is without the politics, albeit in a writing style that I found difficult to interpret during the first reading.
Rating:
Summary: Un-Methodical Acting=Unbelievable and Impractical Acting
Review: David Mamet's book is a fierce attack upon Lee Strasberg's Method approach to acting. In addition, it contains his notions on the professional and personal lives of actors. Mamet believes that actors should merely deliver dialogue, perform blocking, and keep a single intention in mind during performance. Disregarding characterization as a "truthful" form of performance, Mamet believes that the Method creates "fake" acting. Though "Ham-It-Up" acting may result from the Method, the proper and temperamental utilization of the Method simply (and undeniably) stimulates the minds of the audience and makes the delivery of the author's plot more interesting, thought-provoking, and emotionally impacting. In short, David Mamet's book is a must-read for all serious actors. And though its content should be processed , pondered, and intellectualized, its tenets should not be wholly taken as facts. For the beginning actor, be very wary of following his directions to the "T." Though many things he says about actors and acting holds true, amateurs following his style of acting can gain very little fulfillment both professionally, and most important, emotionally. I recommend studying both Mamet and Strasberg's acting methods, practice, practice, practice, and find a median that works for you.
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