True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor

by David Mamet

The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, director and teacher has written a blunt, unsparingly honest guide to acting. In True and False David Mamet overturns conventional opinion and tells aspiring actors what they really need to know. He leaves no aspect of acting untouched: how to judge the role, approach the part, work with the playwright; the right way to undertake auditions and the proper approach to agents and the business in general. True and False slaughters a wide range of sacred cows and yet offers an invaluable guide to the acting profession

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction, Film, Plays, Drama, Writing, Art

127 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

David Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).

Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.

Reviews

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book ever written about anything. Every sentence makes my brain have sex with itself.

[Taylewd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine an Enlightenment thinker, sitting on his drawing room chair sometime in the 18th century, wets his pants so hard at the idea of the mind-body dichotomy he enters a time loop directly into post-Stanislavski America, somehow becoming a playwright in the process.

He would be David Mamet, and this would be his book on acting.

I think this is a good book to read for actors as a cautionary tale on the poorer attempts at Method Acting. Specifically the part about "Playing for Time" is so useful. In "Playing for Time" Mamet skewers the process of "I receive the other actor's line, and rather than responding to it I check in with my internal emotional life because dammit it's all about me, and then I deliver my line, having showed the audience the kind of human interaction that only ever occurs in shitty theatre productions" (paraphrased). Mamet also points out that the actress (now that I think of it this was sexist, why can't men do this too) who summons tears onstage for the sake of summoning tears is removing herself from the narrative of the play and from the almighty Text for which Mamet seems to think actors are mere vessels, going to his own extreme in the process.

Playing for Time and emoting for the sake of emoting are the issues in this book I really responded to. The problem is Mamet doesn't *replace* his "don't do's" with anything. Yes there is a level of trust in the moment that needs to happen so actors don't spend so much time being internal, but the trust in the Text that Mamet is espousing is Absolute, and leaves no room for the actor to, well, act, and that's why the acting in Mamet's productions is so wooden. William H. Macy can pull it off because he is always riding a wave of in-the-moment thought that is so real and unselfish, but whenever I've watched a film of Mamet's I can't help but think the thought process of his actors is "Ok I can't do this, I can't feel this, just delivering the line, trusting the line, Ok here's my line" which is, in effect, exactly the overinternalizing claptrap Mamet warns against. A hyper-literal interpretation of Stanislavski is just as hard to watch as a hyper-literal interpretation of Mamet.

Dear actors, have you ever had a director who you know is judging you and looking for incontrovertible evidence that you're being too cerebral so he or she can point it out to you with a grin that bespeaks Triumph? Did this director say you were being too Internal without qualifying how so and giving you another option, thus only making you more internal? Does this director still infuriate you when you think about him or her? I have a solution: Imagine said director as a third year student, reading this book unsupervised. Feel better?

Ultimately I like the bubbles about acting Mamet bursts, but I think the way he bursts them are more a reflection of his own cynicism than they are something revolutionary and freeing for actors. Do read it, but exercise caution. It's a book with very good thoughts about acting by a person who does not understand actors.

[Isabella Tugman - Audiobook Narrator · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUST READ FOR ACTORS! Holy cow, what an incredible book. After studying acting my entire life, this is the first time I've read Mamet's philosophy on the subject. Cutting through all the bs of acting training and methods, he eloquently states the purpose of the actor.

I collect quotes, and in almost every paragraph of this book, I found myself wanting to write down his words. Finally I gave up on writing, and just decided that this will just have to be a book that I read over and over again.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has some really good thoughts on acting and being an artist. If only Mamet weren't so narrow-minded! He believes that his ideas are right--and that everyone else is wrong. And while I do believe that, for the most part, less is more for acting, especially on film, at the same time, there have so many wonderful, completely believable performances with actors acting "big." If you look at Mamet's films, you also have to be very skeptical of his advice considering most of the acting in his own films is very dull.

I'm actually really surprised he never mentions Robert Bresson considering there is a filmmaker who invented and perfected the no-affectation acting technique, about 30-40 years before this book was published. Perhaps Bresson wasn't macho enough for Mr. Tough Guy Mamet.

His idea, however, that good acting is a courageous battle with the unknown is, I think, sound. Any actor who is too comfortable acting is most likely not really engaging with the material and the circumstances at all. I remember thinking it was fascinating that Gene Hackman hated playing the part of Henry Caul in Coppola's "The Conversation", that the role made him feel terrible. Rather than expressing his feelings, Caul keeps them all bottled up inside, which is a familiar habit of many, many human beings yet not of many actors. The fact that he was uncomfortable in the role indicates that he really was living moment to moment in a very horrible situation. It's really not fun to play that kind of character if you're playing it right--but more often than not, that's the kind of character we want to watch. Mamet's articulation of acting as something which is oftentimes distinctly unpleasurable--an occupation of repeatedly diving into situations in which one has little to no control--is a good one and often forgotten by those who go into the profession for attention and love.

[Alyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibliy the best actor book I have ever read. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention in my BFA program, but I feel like I learned more reading this book that I did in my four years at school. I don't think the differences between what Mamet describes and Stanislovski's method are as big as Mamet would like them to be. They are both trying to get to the same end - honest performance - they are just going about it in different ways.

But what really matters is - none of it matters. It is not about what the actor is going through. It is about what the audience gets out of it.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

here, mamet offers his view and interpretation of what really good acting is, and it can be most effectively distilled as a quotation: "Invent nothing. Deny nothing." meaning that, if it's there in the text, don't hide it in any way, and don't go looking for any greater explanation or supposed-character-based topography than what is presented in the words you are given.

on first reading the book, i dismissed it with the thought: "well, of course he'd say that about acting: he's a playwright!"

it took me a decade of continuous work in theatre to realize just how right mamet is about everything in here.

if you need proof, simply look at the names we know from theatre history: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Moliere, Lope de Vega, etc. they were all PLAYWRIGHTS. though they were all actors and directors and whatnot in some respect, they were, and still are, playwrights first and foremost, and what we remember and what we have of them are their words.

and what will live on, long after we, as actors, are dead and buried face down at a crossroads with stakes through our hearts, are their words.

and if we do not, as actors, put those words first and above all other considerations of character and emotion and whatever-insane-bullshit the liberal-arts-institution-tenured-faculty acting instructors have invented to justify their next publish-or-perish tome, we are fools and deserve to be denied sanctified interment.

because (lest we forget) the root cause of the whole actor-as-heretic treatment is the idea that actors take on other souls like possessed people.

well, if you stand between your audience and the text they came to hear and decide that you are behooven to conjure some new shit up from some combination of aether and your own paltry imagination (seriously, anyone who thinks of themselves as more creative than Shakespeare, raise your hand... [didn't think so.]) then you deserve to be burned at the stake.

theatre is / should be a holy endeavor. imagine if a rabbi, imam, or priest decided to load up god's word with a bunch of made-up-on-the-spot backstory crap about how Abraham (last figure on whom all three can agree) stayed his hand from laying waste to Isaac, not because of any familial bond or intrinsic sense of right and wrong, but because he had never learned the proper means of ceremonial slaughter because, as a child, he... blah blah blah... or he was not fit to perform the sacrifice, because at that moment he smelled feces because that morning, he... yadda yadda yadda...

that ain't what the congregation came to hear.

and if you don't think of your audience, in some way, as a congregation, you don't deserve them.

this goes to a large part of mamet's message in this book, that often gets buried in academic theatre: you, as an actor, are out there for them. not vice versa.

[Jordan Bethea · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is so far the worst book on acting I've read. It reads like the 'Old man yells at cloud' of acting theory. This book seems to exist just so Mamet can tell people that everything he did was right, and everything everyone else does is wrong. He is largely known as a playwright, and tells actors not to think about character or anything complicated, that the playwright is to do that. He also says that all acting teachers are frauds and not to trust them, that acting talent is ingrown and cannot be taught.

He seems to have caught on to the fact that acting is hard, but rather than dig deeper and try for an understanding of the process, has decided that throwing his hands up in the air and admitting defeat is somehow a conclusion to be told to others. He does however, give some general principles about acting - which sound very similar to the acting theory that I learned in one of my acting textbooks, from one of those fraudulent teachers.

Large parts of the book sound contradictory to other parts, other parts sound like he has a vendetta against specific unnamed people and their ideas, but doesn't go into enough detail for the reader to understand. Add to that he tries to use a brusque, terse style that is not well suited to an instructional book, and it's hard to take away anything useful from this other than that he is a grumpy old man who is unable to write clearly. His complex jumbled style works well in plays because they hint at complex characters underneath while being evocative and memorable - but it is not suited to this kind of nonfiction where clarity is king.

I don't really recommend anyone read this book, I think just about all of ideas inside worth reading can be found in other books.

[Heta K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Konkreettisia neuvoja joissa jujua. Esim. Näyttelijän ei tarvitse näytellen tuoda esiin asioita jotka on jo käsikirjoituksessa. Esim. jos käsikirjoituksessa henkilö on menettänyt työnsä, näyttelijän ei tarvitse näytellä "työnsä menettänyttä". Yleisö kuulee, että hahmo on menettänyt työnsä, näkee näyttelijän toimivan lavalla ja ajattelee "tuolta se siis näyttää". Näyttelijän tarvitsee vain keskittyä kysymykseen "mitä minä tekisin" - siis toimintaan, ei sisäisiin tiloihin. Teatterin taika hoitaa loput.

Siihen nähden että Mametin pääpointti on, että näyttelemistä ei voi opiskella, eikä siihen liity juuri teoriaa nii paljon yappingiä ja toistoa jotka ois voinu jättää pois.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazone

Profound and Silly
8/10

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.

the wizard of uz

[John Calzaretta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shia Lebouf recommended this book in an interview, referring to it as the Bible for actors, so I figured I'd check it out. Though I am no actor, I was in a play once and found that many of the lessons learned in acting apply to most all pursuits of life, character development, and the arts. It sounds phony and calculated, but I do find social habits and character traits to be construct-able and mutable. If you are a boring, apathetic person, and aspire to be more energetic, interesting, and confident (maybe like Shia), these are traits that you can build and this book of acting advice can serve as a motivating and constructive force. Personally, I tried to boost my pronunciation and body language skills after the lessons I learned in my acting class. Mamet condemns traditional approaches and philosophies of acting, and instead promotes a more natural performance that relies on instinct and imagination instead of summoning energies and over-dramatifying the character (thinking of a dead puppy when your character is supposed to be sad). Some of the major themes include embracing discomfort, relying on instinct, only communicating/expressing that which minimally needs to be shared, and using imagination to generate interest and curiosity in the present moment. It is difficult to pick out a clear-cut methodology from Mamet, but I can understand how a more natural approach can drag the actor into the moment and enable a more organic and spontaneous performance. As I walk out of the room and sit on the couch with my roommates, I'm going to think "I wonder where this conversation will go?" instead of "I doubt this conversation is going to go anywhere new". This, I feel, takes my ego out of it and allows me to take interest and watch from a 3rd-person view how I'm going to behave in this interaction and how my energy is going to respond to that of those around me. It's going to be different every time, and if you think that is cool, then your interactions are going to be better and lead to new places. From an acting perspective, Mamet says you shouldn't hop on the stage with a checklist of lines, artificial emotions, and actions and then call it a job well done; but instead you should have a general idea and a maximal interest in what may naturally come out of you in each unique performance.

[Bobby Bermea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I pride myself on having friends who think differently than I do. Now, I exaggerate that. Most of my friends think differently than me up to a point but we basically agree on the fundamentals. However, generally I have friends who aren't afraid to disagree with me and who often even enjoy getting into a little donnybrook over art and ideas.

Enter David Mamet. He is definitely that friend. He's a little more bothersome because he's very accomplished and respected so he tends to come at everything from a position of "I must be right because I'm more accomplished and respected" and that can be tiresome without a doubt.

But he's smart, he's not a liar and he's passionate about his subject matter. He obviously cares. Because he is smart and accomplished and by this point, he's probably made a lot of money so there's no need for him to write this book except that he gives a damn. And it is that facet of his writing that is most prominent in True and False. His commitment to the state of the craft is palpable.

None of that means you have to agree with him. I don't through at least half of the book. Maybe more. But when I don't I have to think very carefully about why I don't, and make sure that what I think instead is, in fact, a better idea or a better way of doing things.

And then the inherent challenge is that I have to go out there and do it. That challenge alone is what makes this book not just excellent but necessary.

[K.M. Soehnlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mamet is nothing if not a provocateur, and you'll probably read this having an ongoing argument in your head with him. He attacks just about every sacred tenet of the way plays are produced -- the Method, actors who research their characters, actors who attempt to interpret their lines, most acting schools, auditions, rehearsals, etc. There are times when you read this and think, He's absolutely right! And other times when you'll wonder, Does he even like the theater? He does. He just doesn't like the way most of it is done.

Mamet gave up on acting to become a playwright, and so you can see the roots of statements like these: "The purpose of the performance is to communicate the play to the audience." He sees actors as the vessels, subservient to the playwright, there to "perform actions" and little more. He wants actors "to say the words as simply as possible."

If you've ever been frustrated by films Mamet has directed of his own scripts, like "House of Games" or "The Spanish Prisoner," where the acting style is so affectless that it seems distant, you may find yourself wondering if Mamet is doing himself as much harm as good with his strident proclamations. But you definitely won't be bored with this book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay.

Mamet.

Now as a student of two acting schools, this book wasn't too far off from what I've learned. There were some new elements introduced to me, and a lot of what Mamet had to say I either understood his side or agreed.

But.

There's a LOT he says based on the fact that he's a great playwright and loves his own scripts. Mamet wants the actor to leave it totally up to the script. Well, I don't really agree with this. I agree that things should be simple. Pick an action, know your objective, and go. But come on… I'm a big believer (oh, a word Mamet would cringe knowing I used) in script analysis. Honestly I don't think all of the work should be left to the writer and director. I think it's the actor's job as well to develop a character (Mamet cringed again). And c'mon, the fact he says there's no arc to a play or character? We as humans are affected by situations, and we change or develop who we are. This should be present in a play.

I don't hate what Mamet has to say. I, like with every other "method" or "theory" behind acting, take what I think works out for me from his theories and leave the rest.

[Emily Fortuna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mamet points out some perspectives that absolutely make sense for acting: things I agree with and some parts of the theatre world could probably benefit from being reminded of. HOWEVER, I also feel like he has willfully misinterpreted a lot of other approaches to acting (Stanislavsky, Meisner, etc), and he ridicules them for things that I don't think those acting philosophies were actually teaching. As I see it, when you get right down to it, Mamet and Meisner are after the same thing, and it felt like Mamet was artificially distinguishing himself from other "methods".

All in all, there are interesting nuggets, but it was so interspersed with other things that I felt were very misleading, and therefore not really worth the time.

[Leta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spencer Tracy used to say that the actor's job was to "know your lines and don't bump into the furniture" which David Mamet has managed to turn into a (slim) book-length rant against Method acting and drama schools. On the up side, Mamet rants very well (consider what he does for a living) but on the down side his belief that the playwright did all the work (this is repeated several times) and his "my way and only my way" absolutism are somewhat off-putting.

I am enjoying it though.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

as an actor, i'm bothered - as a theatre historian - i'm amused

[Hellin Karoliina · Rating 4 out of 5]

ajatuksiaherättävä!!! puhkoo monia myyttejä näyttelijäntyöstä ja teatterin tekemisestä ylipäänsä. tosi kärkkäitä väitteitä, joita hyvä jäädä pohtimaan ja jouduin usein pysähtymään pitkäksikin aikaaa pohtimaan onko näin ja mitä mieltä itse olen. terävien huomioiden lisäksi tuntu myös siltä, että momet on näytelmäkirjailija joka ei usko näyttelijän kykenevän roolityöskentelyyn (joka parhaimmillaan syventää teosta?) vaan kaiken pitäisi olla jo kirjotettuna käsikirjoittajan toimesta. HMMHMM silti ehdoton suositus hehe! vekkuli!

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Mamet is awful (and I almost gave this 1 star because of that), which is why I was shocked to find that this is one of the best acting books I’ve read. It’s given me bad dreams and every page has challenged me. “It is not a sign of ignorance not to know the answers. But there is great merit in facing the questions.”

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is quite easy and compelling to read because Mamet brooks no disagreement whatsoever and does not pause to consider alternatives to his approach. In that respect it is like a self-help book, and I do not mean that as strictly a criticism: it is useful, if one is trying to genuinely change the way one lives, to read someone say something like "act first to desire your own good opinion of yourself" with total sincerity and seriousness (42).

Mamet's discussion of how to be a good actor seems eminently plausible to me. He wants to strip away all the faux-authenticity that comes from trying to reproduce on-stage the emotions that you imagine the character in the script is experiencing; in fact, he wants to eliminate the concept of a dramatic character altogether. "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" (9). It's radically simple and difficult to refute.

Mamet has an odd moment early on where he strings Stanislavsky's method together with psychoanalysis and complains that neither of them "show demonstrable results" or "tend towards closure" (15). For anyone who knows at least a little about psychoanalysis it should be clear that this is a common and superficial manner of denigrating the practice. Since Mamet doesn't spend much time on it (indeed, he quotes Freud approvingly later in the book: "as Freud said, a man with a toothache can't be in love" (94)) I don't he's very invested in his criticism here. Stanislavsky is the real demon that True and False is trying to exorcise.

However, I think, funnily enough, that there are quite a few psychoanalytic moments in this book's overall theoretical conception. Fundamentally Mamet wants actors to stop intellectualising their characters, and also to stop regularising their emotions, to stop schematising each script with pre-arranged memories and trigger words and sense checkpoints and so forth, so that they can instead direct their emotional energy outwards, towards the other actors on stage, and towards the actual achievement of a goal. This is what makes the play interesting to the audience, because an audience cannot see the authenticity of your emotions: what they can see, and what human beings are usually interested in, is the struggle involved in solving a problem or attaining a genuine goal, and, as in life, most goals (to open a window, to clean up a mess, to succeed in battle, to ask for a date, to ask for a divorce) are not accomplished by turning inwards. This is a fairly standard Freudian motif: firstly, to succeed in psychoanalysis you have to be honest about your emotions; you have to allow yourself the freedom to feel your emotions as they come up in the discussion, or in dreams or free association. Secondly, in order to become more mature, in a psychoanalytic context, you can't dwell entirely in narcissism, which tends towards neurosis: you need to recognise and appreciate the inner lives of Others, and not just see them as obstacles or duplicate Mothers or Fathers.

On page 87 Mamet writes that "Psychoanalysis hasn't been able to cure [anxiety, guilt, nervousness, self-consciousness, ambivalence - in short, the human condition] in a hundred years, and an acting school isn't going to cure them in two easy terms." I feel like he's onto something with the critique of acting schools, but is not this thing that he describes - this human condition, which he encourages actors to embrace on stage, to take their everyday anxiety and guilt and let it charge the words of the script with meaning, to have the courage to let the script speak while affecting it as its faithful transmitter - exactly what Freud describes as 'ordinary unhappiness'? Mamet has a perfectly psychoanalytic take, I think, a Stoical interest in and acceptance of the vicissitudes of psychic existence which can be efficaciously channeled into artistic practice. I think this book is very ambitious given its length but I will be thinking about it for a while.

[Nick K · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be honest, I've never understood how to do sense memory while still being present in the moment. It always seemed so unnecessary. I also have trouble with a lot of the acting exercises that I've had to do (like closing your eyes and holding your favorite childhood item in your hand). I didn't understand how the applied to the story being told. It all seemed a little vain. And it's refreshing to see someone else put down in words how I feel.

I didn't agree with everything he wrote. I like character development. I think if it's done appropriately while helping move the action along, it's not a problem.

I feel like Mamet was basically saying to get out of your heads, stop thinking too much and speak and see what comes of it. Which resonates with me deeply. I tend to be more visceral than cerebral. I "feel" my way through scenes instead of thinking through them.

Something I strongly disagree with is the Funny Voice he talked about where he says the actor should just speak clearly and not with emotion. I believe words are extremely powerful. One can paint a picture in the mind with words and how they deliver them: inflection, density, velocity, electric, cadence, pitch and tone. However, I do agree that an actor must not bog down the play with too much introspection and unwarranted emotion. It's selfish and boring. Let the audience interpret the play. All you have to do is deliver it honestly and clearly.

I also had a problem with his writing style. It seemed a bit unnecessary and his vocabulary a bit masturbatory. But it's Mamet.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nicely written - it feels like every word is chosen carefully, giving a clarity to each short chapter. I’ve never been any good at acting, but interested in the method, and how it can be linked to psychotherapy - getting in touch with and using emotions and exploring different parts of yourself. Mamet is not up for any of that, however - he is particularly scathing of Method acting and encourages his actors to say their lines and leave the clever bits to the playwright, which I suppose he would do. I wasn’t completely convinced, except when it comes to clearing the mind and not trying to hard. But I could listen to Mamet’s thoughts all day long.

[Damon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for actors. Brilliant in too many ways to list.

Picture Mamet walking alone through the Garden of Acting Wisdom.

Now picture all the statues of False Gods which occupy the Garden. They stand perched on plyths, cast in ridiculous postures designed to inspire cheap awe rather than to reveal any truth about form.

Finally? Picture Mamet swinging a massive fire axe. He knocks all the idols down. Cleaves them in half. Shatters them. Destroys them.

If you end up disagreeing with everything in True or False, it's still worth your time to read it.

[David Monteith]

An incredibly important and truly controversial book. I wholeheartedly agreed with a lot of the things he says (not always with how he got there) and sometimes emphatically disagreed. The book smacks of arrogance yet there is a feeling of desire just for good theatre running through everything. It took me 2 readings. The first time I picked it up a few years ago I threw it down in disgust. Today I'm applauding ( for the most part). An easy read that's definitely worth an actors time

[Cave Empter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mamet’s True and False is highly digestible – not only because of his wonderfully direct style, but also because it is easy to mistake his advice as an excuse to Do Less and still call yourself an actor. A huge portion of the book is spent critiquing Stanislavski’s method, which has influenced much of 20th Century theatre (and culture at large). Perhaps critique is the wrong word – Mamet does not address the method in any great detail. Rather, he takes broad confident strokes that topple the method and any practitioner. Or at least attempt to. What is practically a catchphrase by the end of the collection of essays is Mamet’s insistence that an actor should “Just Say the Lines”. That’s it. Learn the lines before rehearsal. Learn the blocking in rehearsal. Say the lines and do the blocking on the night. Done.

Mamet talks a lot about telling the truth, having discomfort, Doing not Feeling, all sorts of things. There’s a lot about the Bravery it takes to step out on stage, and about how valueless an Education in Drama is. Just get onstage and learn by doing. Pat yourself on the back, Ensemble Member #2! That’s the surface level, at least.

Once you start seeing his polemic as precisely that – polemic – there’s a lot more to gain from it. Mamet acts like he’s talking about all acting, all theatre, all plays. He’s really just preaching his own style with the same certainty founders of older schools assumed. I wouldn’t employ all of his tactics thoughtlessly, but then again I wouldn’t employ a lot of the bullshit that comes with preaching The Method, or any other school of thought.

The way I see it, his real advice isn’t that all preparation done for a role is valueless, but rather that most of it is an excuse, a way to make your work feel harder than it is, a way to feel you’ve earned the right to enjoy the job you’ve chosen to do. So he says, just enjoy it! Pick tactics that are fun, if uncomfortable. Pick roles that are fun, if dastardly. Pick plays that are fun, if unconscionable.

I’m interested in reading newer essays on this by Mamet, particularly given the rise of Method-worship that celebrity acting has engendered even since the late 90s. And, without a doubt, I’ll return to this book. Maybe as an antidote, maybe as a confidence-booster, maybe just to find sentences like “There is nothing more pragmatic than idealism” again. That guy knows how to end a paragraph. I don’t

[Mahour · Rating 3 out of 5]

در زندگی هیچ آماده سازی عاطفی ای برای لطمه دیدن، اندوه، شگفتی، خیانت، کشف وجود ندارد، روی صحنه هم چنین چیزی در کار نیست.
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دوستان سیاست مدارمان را در نظر بگیرید. سیاست مداری که بخش های احترام آمیز نطقش را محترمانه، بخش های تهاجمی آن را سرسختانه و بخش های عاطفی اش را پراحساس ادا میکند، یک شیاد است و هیچ یک از چیزهایی که میخواهد شما باور کنید، حقیقت ندارد... طرز بیانشان تماما دروغ است. آنها درباره آنچه احساس میکنند به شما دروغ گفته اند تا شما را تحت تاثیر قرار دهند. ما چیزهایی را که از ته دل به آنها اهمیت میدهیم، بزک نمیکنیم

[Cynka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do I find this book pretentious? Yeah.
Is it eye-opening and life-changing when it comes to acting? No, not really.
But I did find it very helpful. I found a lot of helpful things here, actually. But when I recommend it to anyone (and you bet I will!), I will tell them to read it with a grain of salt and not oh-so-seriously. And even though I rated it quite highly, I don't think I agree everyone who wants to be an actor should read it. But if you want it, yeah, it might come in handy.

[John Brannigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i don’t agree with absolutely everything, but there’s something for everyone. sometimes you need a good rewiring: get out of your head and get on the stage. do your job. no more, no less. very interesting! VERY pretentious, though.

[Alex Liebetrau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite repetitive in its points - 3 stars for that. But I leave with a feeling of what makes for good acting.

With this under my belt I might as well start casting for the upcoming mind bending drama The Kissing Booth 9: To Kiss or Not to Kiss

[Trent · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may not have agreed with everything he presented, but wow, did he give me lots to think about with my passion for acting.

[D'Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!! Cuts through everything to the very heart of the matter!
I found myself underlining every other sentence!
Passed it on to my DD - who wants to study acting!
Highly recommend!