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The Presence of the Actor (Paperback)

by Joseph Chaikin (Author) "Most of the people I know who are seriously interested in the theater don't really like it very much..." (more)
Key Phrases: open theater, political theater, Living Theater, Joseph Chaikin, New York (more...)

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Product Details

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (January 1, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1559360305
ISBN-13: 978-1559360302
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #771,209 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Most of the people I know who are seriously interested in the theater don't really like it very much. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
open theater, political theater

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Living Theater, Joseph Chaikin, New York, Galy Gay, Des Moines, John Wayne, Martin Luther King, Shami Chaikin, America Hurrah, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Jim Barbosa, Man Is Man, Peter Maloney, Paul Zimet, Ron Faber, Tina Shepard, Tootsie Rolls

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 6 books:

Che Guevara (Critical Lives) on page 142
In the Jungle of Cities (Bertolt Brecht Collected Plays, Vol 1, Pt 3) by Bertolt Brecht on page 49
Happy Days by Samuel Beckett on page 135
Saint Joan by Geroge Bernard Shaw on page 5
Mother Courage (Modern Plays) by David Hare on page 38

See all 6 books this book cites

52 books cite this book:

Twentieth Century Actor Training by Alison Hodge on 9 pages
Modern Dramatists: A Casebook of Major British, Irish, and American Playwrights (Studies in Moderndrama, 14) by Kimball King on page 263, page 270, and page 271
Modern Dramatists: A Casebook of Major British, Irish, and American Playwrights (Routledge Reference Library of the Humanities, Volume 1985 : Casebooks on Modern Dramatists, Volume 28) by Kimball King on page 263, page 270, and page 271
The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama (Postmodern Studies 37) by Kerstin Schmidt on page 92, page 94, and Back Matter
Drama/Theatre/Performance (The New Critical Idiom) by Simon Shepherd on page 226, and Back Matter

See all 52 books citing this book

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Off-Off-Broadway Explosion by David Crespy

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The Theater of Transformation by Kerstin Schmidt

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Customer Reviews

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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disarmingly honest and insightful, February 19, 2000

By	Cari Tigerpaw - See all my reviews

If I could possess only one book, I would choose this book. Chaiken candidly describes profound moments of awareness in his work and in his life, and the relationship between these. This is not a conventional book about the theater, but rather a complicated and understandably inconclusive examination of being and enduring and striving toward authenticity within the confines of an inauthentic "setup." It begins..."Most of the people I know who are seriously interested in the theater don't really like it very much." If you like this book, try The Performance of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman.

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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Theatre and Art, June 27, 2007

By	Amy Cohen Banker "Amy Beth Cohen Banker" (Usually New York New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

He, Peter Brook and Oida all are on my favorite list of books about acting and theatre. This is a very
valuable book and must be included for any person interested in contemporary drama and art. I gave my
copy to my daughter but will purchase another one soon.

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4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written at best, useless on average, May 17, 2006

By	Mat "Mat" (CA) - See all my reviews

I cannot believe that this book ever got published. Truly, Chaikin posits no real theory in it; nor does he make any concrete espousements. Instead he writes in a slap dash way leaving the reader to wonder if he is indeed all there during the writing of certain sections. There is no style nor flow nor purpose to some of his statements, and within each pararaph he has five or six topic sentences rather than a thought out point. I think the most revealing point of the book is when he mentions his heroin use to feel the inner warmth. In this statement I saw how this book could have been composed, but I am still searching to find out how it was published.