True and False

by MAMET, DAVID

• ISBN13: 9780679772644
• ISBN10: 0679772642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-02-22
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

Invent nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school. With these words, one of our most brilliantly iconoclastic playwrights takes on the art of profession of acting, in a book that is as shocking as it is practical, as witty as it is instructive, and as irreverent as it is inspiring. Acting schools, "interpretation," "sense memory," "The Method"-David Mamet takes a jackhammer to the idols of contemporary acting, while revealing the true heroism and nobility of the craft. He shows actors how to undertake auditions and rehearsals, deal with agents and directors, engage audiences, and stay faithful to the script, while rejecting the temptations that seduce so many of their colleagues. Bracing in its clarity, exhilarating in its common sense, True and Falseis invaluable.

Author Biography

David Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, as well as a director, novelist, poet, and essayist. He has written the screenplays for more than twenty films, including Heist, Spartan, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, Wag the Dog, and the Oscar-nominated The Verdict. His more than twenty plays include Oleanna, The Cryptogram, Speed-the-Plow, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and the Pulitzer Prizewinning Glengarry Glen Ross. Born in Chicago in 1947, Mamet has taught at the Yale School of Drama, New York University, and Goddard College, and is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company.

Table of Contents

To the Actor	p. 3
Some Thoughts	p. 5
Ancestor Worship	p. 8
A Generation That Would Like to Stay in School	p. 17
Scholarship	p. 23
Find Your Mark	p. 25
I'm on the Corner	p. 34
Business Is Business	p. 37
Auditions	p. 44
Paint by Numbers	p. 52
"Work"	p. 55
Oral Interpretation	p. 60
Helping the Play	p. 64
Acceptance	p. 67
The Rehearsal Process	p. 72
The Play and the Scene	p. 75
Emotions	p. 77
Action	p. 82
Guilt	p. 86
Concentration	p. 93
Talent	p. 98
Habit	p. 101
The Designated Hitter	p. 105
Performance and Character	p. 109
The Villain and the Hero	p. 113
Acting "As If"	p. 115
"They Once Walked Among Us"	p. 121
Eleven O'Clock Always Comes	p. 123
Meritocracy	p. 125
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.