Customer Reviews

Working on the Inside: The Spiritual Life Through the Eyes of Actors

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4 star:		(2)
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This book was not exactly what I was hoping it would be. I am an actor whose faith plays a large role in how I approach things (especially art) and the decisions I make. The spirituality discussed in this book seems watered down and manipulated to suit the individual's needs. Most of the people interviewed talk about their faith as if its only purpose is to make them feel warm and tingly instead of how their faith shapes their relationship with a living God and the people around them that most religions tell us we are called to serve and love. This book has a few interesting moments, but I wish it would have dug a little deeper.

There's no other book like this, and you'd think there would be, given that theater and religion are so linked in their histories. The discussion of actors' spiritual lives is not given in general terms but is quite specific. The author interviews actors from many different traditions, and she brings in ministers to provide welcome overview and comment. The writing is clear as a bell, reflecting the author's journalism background and her astute questioning.

Actors really are spiritual, and their sporadically rewarding lives require faith, and not just faith they'll get the part, but faith that their own journeys are moving on the right road. No one can tell you this; it's why a spiritual life needs cultivating, and the actors interviewed here are all different, and they are all generous in sharing their insights. My church book group loved it. The accounts -- including those by Liam Neeson, Vanessa Williams, Phylicia Rashad, Edward Herrmann, and the effervescent Kristin Chenoweth are enormously interesting.

I think this is an avenue that is so fruitful, and I wish Ms. Blaney would write another - perhaps with not so famous actors, or actors just starting out. "Names" sell books, though, so perhaps they could be mixed into the brew. Anyway,I hope for more!

Mary Sheeran

Blaney's text is an important collage of the actor's spiritual awwareness of the theatre as spiritual journey.
There is a textual exploration that goes far beyond the histrionic technique and provides an ongoing and progressive investigation of the layered spiritual communication occurring from creator to performer to audience.
Dr. John V. Roche

I really don't think there is anthing like this book out there- on the spiritual lives of performers. It includes Christian, Jew and few in between. A thoughtful and fun book.