To hell with Stanislavsky. To hell with the Method. "The actor is onstage to communicate the play to the audience," says David Mamet. "That is the beginning and the end of his and her job. To do so the actor needs a strong voice, superb diction, a supple, well-proportioned body and a rudimentary understanding of the play." Anything else--"becoming" one's part, "feeling" the character's emotions--devalues the practice of a noble craft and is useless to the play. "The 'work' you do 'on the script' will make no difference," he cautions. "That work has already been done by a person with a different job title than yours. That person is the author."

But True and False does not confine itself to the work done on the actual stage. Its brief essays contain sound advice on how an actor might apply himself or herself to the life of the actor: the proper consideration due the audition process, the selection of parts that one accepts, and so on. Mamet delivers these kernels of wisdom in the taut, no-nonsense prose for which he is justifiably famous, and, ultimately, his core principles are applicable beyond the theater. "Speak up, speak clearly, open yourself out, relax your body, find a simple objective," he instructs. "Practice in these goals is practice in respect for the audience, and without respect for the audience, there is no respect for the theater; there is only self-absorption." Substitute "others" for "the audience" and "life" for "the theater," and could any Taoist say it better? --Ron Hogan

A guide to the acting profession by a leading American playwright. He advises aspiring actors on topics such as judging a role, approaching the part, working with the playwright, undertaking auditions, and the relationship with agents and the business in general.

You should red this if you intend to be a part of the theatre world.

This book was recommended to me by a successful actor and I really enjoyed reading it.

This book is both true and false. Mamet shares some brilliant insights and just when you are ready to drink the koolaid, he says something so unbelievably ridiculous and generalized that you literally throw the book down in disgust - or at least I did. In the end, however, the good outweighs the bad and the insights are worth the outrage.

I read this to find ways to improve my performance as a magician. I got a great deal out of this book. However, I would rather go practice than spend time reviewing ! This book is a steal, buy it.

Acclaimed screenwriter and playwright David Mamet has written "True and False," a provocative, intentionally revolutionary book on acting in which he attempts, with varied success, to sweep aside most acting theories and to reduce acting to simply and actively communicating the play (or film) to the audience by doing something like what the writer has shown the character to be doing.

While this is fundamentally true, and the way Mamet develops it hits the reader like a breath of fresh air, Mamet often throws the baby away with the bathwater. For example, acting schools and most acting teachers are seen as authoritarian charlatans, when many of them in my experience encourage the very truthful self-realization that Mamet champions!

Mamet also seems to believe that doing any research on the world of the play or on the kind of human being your role suggests prevents you from being truthful in the moment of performance, while the experience of great actor-teachers like Uta Hagen (and my own experience as both actor and audience) indicates precisely the opposite.

In general, valuable acting techniques that help the actor to truly commit to his task in the scene, with high personal stakes and a deep emotional resonance, are discarded not only as useless and unplayable but also as harmful.

Mamet is right that acting is finally simple, but it's not as simple as he makes it, and thereby he robs it of much of its range and richness. It's great for me the actor to commit 100% to my action on stage/screen, but what skills do I actually use to do that? And how do I bring an ever deeper, richer, more complex, and truthful me to the task in a way that both enlightens and entertains the audience? These questions are answerable but not with the oversimplified method that Mamet presents.

Nevertheless, "True and False" is an enjoyable and constantly provocative meditation on our contemporary state of acting--and of living--that no actor should miss. Even though I cannot agree with all of his answers, Mamet's enduring questions about what is true and false in life and onstage makes this book a must-read.