Customer Reviews

Theatre

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book reads like a drunken rant. So to loosely paraphrase Abe Lincoln, find out what brand of whiskey Mamet is drinking and give me a double.

Twenty-seven of playwright David Mamet's theatrical essays have been "organized", in no particular order, into a little book called THEATRE. The general subject matter is indeed the theatre, but with the topic drift between one essay and another no central premise can be discovered.

Lajos Egri fans know that the lack of a premise is the missing heart of bad playwriting. But nobody is suggesting that this book be adapted for the stage, so the reader can simply enjoy it for the wisdom it brings. And it is a very wise book. Be advised, with a book made up of rambling essays, the resulting review predictably also rambles, so in no particular order, my observations on Mamet's wisdom.

MAMET ON ACTING: Hit the final consonant, so you don't swallow the last two words of your speech. This alone will improve performances everywhere.

MAMET ON ACTING TRAINING: That famous acting schools are famous not because of the quality of their training but because they attracted super-talented people is undoubtedly true, but the training that perfects your voice and body could have gotten better attention. Mamet's comments about Sanford Meisner's technique are odd, considering how much of Meisner's approach is reflected in Mamet's writing. And while Meisner's repeating game may have never been finished by anybody, it's not without value, and I've watched children spontaneously engage in it.

MAMET ON THE "CULT" OF THE THEATRE: That the "Method" is nothing but psychobabble is a heresy that should have been stated a long time ago. The theatre is not a religion, it's a job, and Mamet's clear and workmanlike approach to that job is infinitely better than the mystical mumblings of the small cabal of leftish gurus who have dominated American theatre since the 1930's.

MAMET ON DIRECTORS: A lot of his dismissive comments about directors are applicable only to plays, and would be a disaster when applied to operettas or musicals. The magnificent contributions that people like Dorothy Danner, Joanne Akalaitis and Mike Nichols make with their direction can't be dismissed, and it would have been nice if Mamet had explored the differences between talented and untalented directors by example instead of pronunciamento.

MAMET ON THE INSTITUTIONAL THEATER: Anybody who has ever worked for a Children's Theatre or any LORT theatre will grimly agree with Mamet's observation that if the task of an artist is to create, the task of an institution is to continue. At some point, an institutional theatre becomes all about the administration, and the artists get shoved to the periphery. One can easily imagine a theatre made up of nothing but administrators that puts on various audience and community programs but never stages a single show, and indeed I know of two theatres that do just that. As Mamet points out, such programs are actually useless; if you're putting on exciting plays with exciting actors, you don't need an Audience Development Director, and if you attract an audience you don't need Audience Feedback meetings, the crowd was all the feedback you needed. Those who doubt this can take a look at the current (2010) Guthrie Theatre webpage. There are voluminous entries for the administrative staff and programs, and nary a word about the acting company. This at a theatre that was founded by Tyrone Guthrie to showcase talented actors in reparatory.

This is just a preview of some really valuable observations, and an admirable Mamet property is that he is the opposite of a theatre practitioner, eschewing theoretical discourse to explain what he does. Like the City of Brawny Shoulders he works in, Mamet's viewpoint is mercantilist. His standard of theatrical success - watch the box office - cannot be argued with. If you have no audience, who did you put the show on for? Are you mounting a play or engaging in an extended audition for the real play you want to get into?

For those who are comfortable where they are, this book probably won't be of much use. For those trapped in a particular "culture" of theatre, probably adopted from high school or college or wherever the first exposure to the stage was, this nifty little book provides a way out.

Mamet here attacks various theories of theater, most notably ideological ones, following Paul Johnson's critique of Brecht. That the book is short I do not see as a flaw, and I do not find any repetition other than than necessary to overcome entrenched views in the academy.

In this quick read, Mamet dissects the reanimated corpse of the modern American theatre in hopes of a resurrection. True, several concepts are repeated, but some must bear it in order to sink in. While I was challenged to agree with 100% of what's presented here, I'm interested in the productive center of the dramatic enterprise. Upon objective reflection I was edified.

I'm getting angry at this book. Not because I disagree with Mamet's political views (though I do) or his theatrical views (cause I don't), but because it's not worth the money. Every goddamn essay makes the same points OVER and OVER again. He wrote one $5.00 essay and parlayed it into a $22.00 book.

One of the points constantly slammed home is that once your audience's eyes start glazing over, give up. You lost. I'm on page 138 and I'm hard pressed to finish it. My eyes are glazing over.

And this is coming from a Mamet FAN, not somebody who takes umbrage at his comtempt for Method acting. I loved "November". "Bobby Gould in Hell" is one of my favorite plays. His writing is entertaining and he makes valid theatrical points in this book.

And makes them.

And makes them.

And makes them.

Mamet needs to take his own advice about keeping up the audience's interest.

There's no denying that Mamet is one of the finest living American playwrights. His non-dramatic writings are hit and miss, but usually when he's writing about what he knows best--theatre--he reveals glimmers of brilliant insight. Writing in Restaurants, The Three Uses of the Knife, and True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor all suggest, in measured doses, the mystical side of drama, even while dismissing much of the dogma associated with Stanislavsky and the American Method.

Given his track record, a book called simply Theatre promised great things. But Mamet has run out of steam; while there may be a few worthwhile insights contained in this series of random, repetitive diatribes, they are all lifted from his previous books. In particular, Theatre is a misanthropic retread of all the "heretical" parts of True and False, as if Mamet is cranky because the entire profession didn't reform itself the moment his last book hit the stands.

I expect a lot of aspiring actors, directors, designers, and playwrights will buy this book in order to learn from a master. Tough, says Mamet; you can't learn anything about theatre, from him or anyone else. Actors are out of luck because, in Mamet's esteem, you've either got it or you don't. Directors are time-wasters, and designers distract from the only important thing on the stage, which is the plot. For playwrights, whose Herculean job it is to create that plot, Mamet's advice is succinct: "Learn how to write a plot." How does one do that? "By writing, revising, staging, revising, and starting again. Good luck."

Mamet's definition of theatre seems narrowly fixed upon a supposed Golden Age of Broadway. As he states innumerable times, the only real theatre is for-profit, professional, contemporary drama (actually, tragedy; drama is too ambiguous). Any other form of theatre (community, not-for-profit, academic, state-supported) is not only considered drek, but ends up hoisted alongside a weird collection of archaic boogeymen: psychoanalysts, communists, fascists, second-wave feminists, and political correctness all seem somehow conspiring to destroy Mamet's Real Theatre. Theatre schools are a particular bugbear for the writer (another repetition from True and False) , except of course for Mamet's own Atlantic Theatre School, which was the Real Deal.

Mamet's prose style is convoluted, abrupt, evoking the worst sort of intellectual posturing--which is odd, for a man who seems so dismissive of anything that hints of academia. Worse, his tone throughout is so negative that anyone passionate about theatre (and who else would buy this book, I wonder?) will either stop reading, or risk having their love corrupted, debased to the level of a mere financial transaction by a grouchy, intrusive old pimp.

Although not all would agree with Mamet's premises, I find them right on and entertaining. His knowledge of theater and what works is fantastic. I would recommend this work to anyone interested in Theatre at any level.

If it doesn't serve the story, get rid of it. Period. That's what I came away with from this text.

One of the greatest lessons I learned as a lighting designer is this - if the audience notices the lighting, you did a bad job (both in "that sucked" and "that was lovely" sort of ways.) Mamet's book, to me, focuses this type of mantra to acting and directing (and in parentheses to scenic and costume design - he's obviously always had good lighting designers, because he's not noticed or bashed them). If the audience notices the acting, it's bad. If they notice the directing (the CONCEPT), it's bad. If they walk out of the theatre saying, "that was a good story," you win. They will tell their friends, they will come back, they will put butts in seats, which is, whether we admit it or not, they only thing theatre folks really want.

Does this book seem to take for granted that good actors just are - yeah, it seems to me. And certainly, my understanding of Meisner (limited and far from the source though it is), is about being real, being connected to your acting partners and going after what you're after, so I don't think it's far off the mark.

BUT, so far as actors have been too much about focusing on "emotion" and not about "what am I DOING?" and directors have felt a need to be original and "say something" and scenic designers have distracted from the actor and them telling the story (all of which is artistic self-gratification), I think there are TONS of people in the theatre who could use a good dose of "put up, shut up or go home," and as Mamet's earned his stripes in the trenches, we'd be wise to listen to the old sarge.

Mamet is astonishingly dishonest and it's his dishonesty, not his prescriptive shallowness that makes this book interesting. Once upon a time, Mamet studied with one of the master teachers of American acting, Sanford Meisner. In "True and False" the approach to acting he recommends and by that time had installed in his own Atlantic Theater School is essentially Sandy's. But you will not find a single mention of Meisner in that book. It reads as if Mamet, having surveyed the field and found it wanting, and having worked in theater for a long time, came up with the approach on his own. He didn't, as anyone who knows anything about actor training in this country would know. That's why most of the (usually well-trained) actors I know dismissed it.

Since Mamet won't talk about his teacher, teachers being charlatans and all, it's no surprise that he also fails to mention that Meisner's work, along with that of Stella Adler (also unmentioned) and Lee Strasberg (condemned) is grounded in the pioneering work of, wait for it...Stanislavsky; the artistic director of one of the great theaters of the 20th century. There is no point in trying to condense the history of 20th century acting training in this space but suffice it to say that Stanislavsky begot Strasburg, Adler and Meisner (and through Meisner, Mamet) who encountered his work at different times and emphasized different aspects of it as central to their approaches, which then took on lives of their own. There is also no space here to discuss various theories of and approaches to acting that have produced written texts going back to the Greeks either, but it is worth noting that all of them place importance in one way or another on the thing Mamet seems most dismissive of, emotion.

As for the idea that all the audience cares about is plot? Well so much for all those authors who produced enduring and commercially successful theater without placing any particular importance on plot. I'm thinking of O'Neill, Chekhov, Albee, Beckett, Williams, Wilson and others. And if success depends on the audience only being interested in what happens next, what of Shakespeare? We already know what happens next. Still we go.

I don't know what accounts for Mamet taking himself so seriously that he can't even acknowledge his own influences and leads him to dismiss those who influenced those who taught him. That would be worth reading about. I don't know why he claims that actors either have it (talent) or they don't since he should know that anything that can't be learned or improved upon through study and practice can't be considered a skill. And maybe he doesn't think acting is a skill. I can't tell. I don't know why he thinks that an art form that is thousands of years old and is practiced in various forms in every culture needs to be rethought by David Mamet. But I do know that he hasn't said anything that anyone who takes theater seriously, and takes seriously the skills needed to create it, needs to pay attention to.

Look, I'm a big fan of early-ish Mamet (Glengarry Glenn Ross, Speed-the-Plow) -- but this book is a hundred ways of terribly argued. It basically boils down to this: theory is bad, directors are bad, all you need are actors and a text. My problem isn't with the conclusion, but with the complete lack of argument: Mamet never proves any point, but just asserts with a frustrating lack of specificity. For instance, Mamet argues that all but a few directors could be disposed of -- but then doesn't name the directors. (Which directors make the cut? Now *that* would be an interesting essay. Otherwise, it's just hot air. And didn't Mamet just direct RACE on Broadway? Grrrr.) Likewise, Mamet asserts that director-less summer stock productions are superior to pretty much every production that has a director. (I've seen a *lot* of productions, and I've yet to see a single production without a director, summer stock or otherwise. Again, what director-less summer stock productions did he see that blew the roof off of e.g. American Idiot?).

Without specific examples from specific productions, Mamet relies far too much on special pleading and the benevolence of the reader -- a benevolence which has to earned, I'm afraid.