Please comment on the following questions based on your reading of Mamet.
Please comment and answer questions by Mon Feb 25.
"Ancestor Worship"
In this section, Mamet essentially takes Stanislavsky to the woodshed and destroys the concept of school for actors.
Naturally, this irritates many in the field of theatre, but generally, just the academics in theatre.
Why do school or training?
As you answer- keep in mind the reference to the actor's studio: "choosing" as opposed to "making" actors-
If the idea of "method" and preparation for an emotional state of being- or for an inter-connectedness with the material is irrelevant- or tertiary- then translate this to screen performance- how does one perform for screen? Can one prepare? If so, how?
"Helping the Play"
How does one refrain from helping the play? In this case, screenplay/film?
Is he suggesting that the imagination is not fertile or active when an actor is trying to emotionally or intellectually prepare for a performance? What are your thoughts on this stance?
"Acceptance"
What are the implications, risks, and advantages for learning "to accept" your role in this film project?
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ReplyDeleteAncestor Worship
DeleteQ:
Why do school or training? As you answer- keep in mind the reference to the actor's studio: "choosing" as opposed to "making" actors-
A:
As Mamet mentioned, "the actor needs a strong voice, superb diction, a supple, well proportioned body, and a rudimentary understanding of the play,” it is clear for me that in order to become a great actor, we need to get some professional training . However, later on Mamet claimed good plays already speak for themselves, so all actors need to do is to utter the lines without adding their thoughts and emotion. Later, Mamet also claimed, “It is the job of the actor to show up, and use the lines and his or her will and common sense, to attempt to achieve a goal similar to that of the protagonist. These thought sounds like actors do not need training and they can be simply as who they are.
In addition, Mamet said the actor’s studio did not make actors become good ones; on the contrary, it chose actors who were already great. In other words, those good actors were already accomplished, and the actor’s studio offered nothing to them. For me, it seems like Mamet tried to make readers believe that gene creates good actors, and acquired learning brings no influence. Is it true?
If we do not go to school and get some training, will we use our voice and body to express ourselves properly? Do we have the skill to analyze scripts to get better understanding? Is the “common sense” reliable? Besides, I do not think it is fair to say the actor’s studio contributed nothing to those actors’ success. It is like going to a master program in acting and being successful afterwards. At the beginning, you are picked by the program because of your native intelligence, passion, the effort you made, and so on. Does that mean you are already a good actor? Not yet. I say you or your work has some good quality. After three-year training, you become a great actor. Can you say even without the training you would be still successful? What makes you become a better actor? The training does.
Why do school or training?
DeleteYou can lead a person to the stage but you can't make him act. Of course actors are chosen because their has to be some sort of potential to mold an actress out of. Mamet does say some provokative things when comparing the actor to the musician or the doctor. However, I think Mamet is viewing the job of an actor through a strictly capitalistic lens. "The actor is onstage to communicate the play to the audience. That is the beginning and the end of his and her job." What Mamet is mostly concerned with here is the labor of the actor not (and it is hard for me to say this without rolling my eyes) the craft. Mamet is less concerned about the process and more concerned about the product. However, today performance scholars are looking to cognitive science to better understand what the brain is doing when it is performing and when it is receiving a performance. This brain mapping looks at both how the process of performing is internalized by the actor and how the performance is received by the audience. Now, I am not saying this is the end-all be-all of performance. I think that straying too far down the cognitive science path can also lead us to a place where the craft of acting is left out of the discussion. I just think that both the labor of acting as well as the craft of acting need to be discussed together to construct an argument on whether or not training is needed. The craft, talent, potential or whatever you want to call it has to be present for the labor to take place. Untalented nobodies are not going to get to perform the labor but, talented unskilled laborers will not either.
How does one perform for screen? Can one prepare? If so, how?
I am not sure I understand this question so I will just say that from what I have seen, film has the ability to choose what it wants the audience to see. It frames the story in a completely different way than the stage does. It chooses for the audience what is important. I think it also chooses for the actor as well. Film acting is smaller more subtle because it can be. Close up shots and microphones make small movements of the eye and whispers mean more in film when they would not be readable on stage. It also simultaneously allows for more flexibility for the actor but less artistic agency. THe actor can provide a range of different performances but what is immortalized forever on screen is not their final decision. The editor and the director make the choices of what the actor's final performance will look like.
How does one refrain from helping the play? In this case, screenplay/film?
Isn't the idea "less is more" what Mamet is really getting at? As human beings we all have the ability to empathize or sympathize with other human beings. If actors are embodied story tellers then all we have to do is let them tell the story. They don't need to "overact" to get the audience to react. They have to engage with the audience using the material given. Mamet is also assuming though, that the play material is quality material. If the play/screenplay is bad then there is no amount of imagination an audience can have that would save it.
What are the implications, risks, and advantages for learning "to accept" your role in this film project?
I think acceptance is both freeing and dangerous. If I just accept my place in life or on a smaller skill this film project then I am saying that I do not have any say or agency in this situation. Accepting means I will not struggle for change. Accepting means that I become complacent. In turn, accepting also means that I can stop fighting. It means that I can become more focused on the task at hand instead of striving for something bigger or better than what I already have.
- Evleen
Helping the Play
ReplyDeleteQ:
How does one refrain from helping the play? In this case, screenplay/film? Is he suggesting that the imagination is not fertile or active when an actor is trying to emotionally or intellectually prepare for a performance? What are your thoughts on this stance?
A:
In a film project, our audience is only couple inches away from us, right at where the camera is, so every action and reaction from actors is very obvious to the audience. There is no way to hide from the audience’s eyes. If actors, based on what they predict, prepare their emotion to react to what they receive from their partner, then it will turn out to be a disaster because the audience can tell that the reaction is untruthful and the emotion is fake. In real life, we do not prepare our emotion and reaction, so in film projects if we want to be as truthful as we are in real life, we’d better not prepare.
I had been trained as a dancer for many years before I got into the theatre program in my university. At that time, I memorized lines and actions like I memorized choreography; in other words, for the exact line I reacted in the same way every time even my partner’s action changed from time to time. My director told me I was too perfect like a dancer, and he did not want the perfection because it was not real. It was too artificial to fit in real life. I was too scared to let my imagination fly and did not trust my true feeling to the play.
However, if it is like what the author said, “Most plays are better played than performed,” and then do we still need stage performances and films? I say yes. We need them. In my opinion, every performance is a presentation of a creator’s imagination, and by seeing others’ imagination our imagination grows.
Acceptance
ReplyDeleteQ:
What are the implications, risks, and advantages for learning "to accept" your role in this film project?
A:
When we are in a film project, sometimes for shooting purposes we need to speak to the camera even we are supposed to talk with our partners as authors wrote on the script. Based on what I read in this chapter, we should not induce ourselves to believe we are talking to our partners while speaking to a camera. In other words, a camera is a camera, and it is not going to be a human being. We accept that we are speaking to a camera but say the words and execute the actions called for by authors, so during the shoot our mind will not struggle with the thought of “Am I truthful enough to look like I am talking with my partner?”
However, the risk of being aware that we are actually performing in front of a camera is that we may start to “perform”, meaning doing something unnecessary or unrelated to the character and the play. We as the audience do not want to see an actor sell his/her charm unduly, and we as actors should not do that as well.
In this film project, mostly the character we portray is very like ourselves, so the advantage in the shooting process is that we have lass burden to carry and are able to present ourselves as truthfully as possible. In the project, we can be who we are, so to speak, and accept the idea of being who we are in front of the camera.
Let's try this again...
ReplyDeleteWhy do school or training?
As you answer- keep in mind the reference to the actor's studio: "choosing" as opposed to "making" actors-
You have to do school for your own reasons. I do think school can be a safe place to work on your voice and body, and prepare for the professional world. I'm a good example of someone who had some success without much training, but it also held me back, especially the weaknesses in my speaking voice. School can broaden your range. I do think actors come in more shapes in sizes than we see today. Where are today's Charle's Durnings, or Ernst Borgnine's? We as actors get into trouble in school when we're searching for approval of our work. That becomes ingrained and soon you're looking for approval from directors and casting directors. I'm as guilty as anyone. Still working on that one.
how does one perform for screen? Can one prepare? If so, how? Is he suggesting that the imagination is not fertile or active when an actor is trying to emotionally or intellectually prepare for a performance? What are your thoughts on this stance?
I think he's saying the imagination is a fertile ground for prep. But you have to be brave enough to let it go and respond to what's happening in that moment. Your prep will bubble up. But you have to trust it enough to let it go. You may react differently than you thought/planned. That's life.
What are the implications, risks, and advantages for learning "to accept" your role in this film project?
There's a difference between believing and accepting the circumstances of your role. Especially in film, with all of the crew and people around. It's not real. But your imagination will allow you to forget them and accept that what's happening to you in that moment is real, and therefore behave accordingly. You don't believe your father is dying on that deathbed. You just accept it for the moment as truth.
Q: Why do school or training?
ReplyDelete---> Mamet, in my opinion, assumes a lot about the actor's "natural ability": nature independent of nurture is a zero-sum game in the world of talent. While it is true that some nurtured habits and techniques can be ultimately counter-productive to our talents, it is only through the "right" training that we can achieve our greatest talent potential. The actor is the choices he or she makes. The training (ideally, of course) is what the actor goes through in order to learn how best to find and craft their choices. If the actor only chooses what they "naturally" know and through lack of training have nothing else from which to pull, then they are limited and less useful to their craft. Proper training offers the playground to explore your choices and the laboratory to grow them. Talent must be nurtured to thrive
Q: If the idea of "method" and preparation for an emotional state of being- or for an inter-connectedness with the material is irrelevant- or tertiary- then translate this to screen performance- how does one perform for screen? Can one prepare? If so, how?
---> I've heard it said that screen acting is nothing more than "a thought in your head." I would argue that screen acting requires an abundance of preparation and choice-making leading up to the shoot, followed by the clear and crystallized performance of those choices without a thought about them. This is not to say that spontaneity is to be removed. Rather, it is to say that the character/role you create must be within your heart and your eyes when you step onto camera. You cannot cheat the lens and your canvas is a great deal more intimate on camera than in a 2000 seat theatre. Your prep is what allows you the freedom to play in the moment while still not sacrificing your precarious position on the stage of the camera lens, where any shred of artifice will be found out.
Q: How does one refrain from helping the play? In this case, screenplay/film? Is he suggesting that the imagination is not fertile or active when an actor is trying to emotionally or intellectually prepare for a performance? What are your thoughts on this stance?
---> The emotions are on the page, so the actor doesn't need to play them. They need only "be acted upon." If the actor attempts to assist the screenplay by conveying the emotions, the stage of the camera lens will shine its bright light upon their artifice and they will fail. They must only take up the words and the situation of the character, and if they get out of their own way they can "be acted upon" and ultimately deliver the emotions that are on the page. The "pre-prep" for the character cannot be anything but imagination-based, since the actor is not playing the role until the moment they are playing the role. I think Mamet is only saying: "stop trying to play at the emotions or the character." Instead, prepare through imagination the character within yourself, then just speak the words and live the situation in the moment when the time comes. The rest will take care of itself.
Q: What are the implications, risks, and advantages for learning "to accept" your role in this film project?
---> Implications: You have a part to play that you must fulfill; you are limited to the playing of said part; you are tasked with playing the part to the best of your abilities. Risks: You are not the part you've been chosen to play; you cannot become the part through any false character creation because it will fall flat on the stage of the camera lens; your abilities may not be sufficient to execute the part in your mind. Advantages: You are the only person who can play this part; you are the character because there is no one else cast as the character; your talents are sufficient to successfully be yourself...and you are the character.
So, Mamet is not the only person to take good ol' Stan (and yes, that's what I'm calling him because I'm too lazy to type his name out in full) to task. With this in mind, I'll gladly answer these questions, but first, I'd like to say that I almost completely disagree with Mamet. However, I do identify with Mamet when he writes, "As a playwright and as a lover of good writing, I know that the good play does not need the support of the actor, in effect, narrating its psychological undertones, and that a bad play will not benefit from it" (12). Certainly, most playwrights feel a kind of disconnect from their work when they see it performed, if only because there are now psychological undertones accompanying the work as a whole that the playwright did not author, nor did the playwright necessarily anticipate these psychological undertones would be present in the performance of his/her work. That being said, I don't think that he should have taken Stan to task the way that he did, and I don't think that an actor who wants to use The Method, or whatever, is always doing a disservice to the play. A lot of times, the work that actors do to bring emotion to the play (or screenplay) is helpful and gives added dimension to the work. I think Mamet is being a bit too rigid with his argument. I mean, how many times does he bring up the musician? Like twice or something, I think. Anyway, at one point, Mamet writes, "I don't care to see a musician concentrating on what he or she feels while performing. Nor do I care to see an actor do so, " (12). While I'm glad that we've cleared up what he likes and doesn't like, I think it's important to point out that there are people out there who have talked quite a bit about the necessity of seeing the musician concentrating on what he or she is feeling while he or she is performing. As much as I HATE to quote him, because he's a plagiarist and whatever else, Phillip Auslander wrote, "What musicians perform first and foremost is not music, but their own identities as musicians, their musical personae" (102). And of course, there's Chris McRae, who has published not one, but two articles on the importance of the musician's personae and feelings during a musical performance [Cf., "Singing 'I Will Survive': Performance as Evolving Relationship" (2010) and "Listening to a Brick: Hearing Location Performatively" (2012)]. That being said, I think that Mamet has every right to his opinions, but perhaps he might have considered the scholarship on musical performance before deciding to cite musical performance as one of his supports for his argument. (I'm just sayin'.)
ReplyDeleteOkay, so now to the questions....
ReplyDeleteWhy school? What kind of question is that? Why school?! To learn, of course. Why else? And sure, maybe the studio chose the students rather than making them, but c'mon. All colleges and universities do this to a certain extent. Think about grad school: Not everyone who applies gets in because not everyone is grad student material. The grad school chooses the candidates most likely to succeed as grad students. The grad school does not just accept Homeless Joe off of the street corner (unless he has a stellar GPA from undergrad, a solid application, excellent writing samples, killer GRE scores, and money to pay the application fee) because Homeless Joe will likely make a terrible graduate student because he's Homeless Joe. I mean, if he can't even shower, how is he going to afford his books, and on what computer is he going to type up his papers, or blog post responses? I mean, what's wrong with hedging your bets? That's all the studio was doing, right? It's what LSU's grad school does, too. And with regard to the rest of that question about the irrelevance of the Method, well, that's just silly. I mean if we go along with Mamet (and in case you missed it, I don't want to go along with him on this), he wants us to think that "great drama, onstage and off, is not the performance of deeds with great emotion, but the performance of great deeds with no emotion whatever" (13). Right, so without emotion we all sound like emotional cripples (is that P.C.?) and we just do everything dead-panned and while that's really funny and ironic if it's a comedy, the rest of the time it just means that the actor is a robot. I mean, think about it and I'm sure that you can list a few actors who have the emotional range of a teaspoon. (Yes, that is a Harry Potter reference.) And their emotionless delivery of "great deeds" sucks. I often feel like my soul is being sucked out of me when I'm forced to watch such performances, except when it's dead-panned comedy, in which case, sign me up, 'cause I can watch that for hours. Anyway, I forgot where I was going with this, but people don't just do things without emotion, ever, or at all. In order to give a "performance of great deeds with no emotion whatever" the actor would have to be dead, or a computer/robot, or maybe a cyborg, but I'm not ready to move this conversation to post-humanism, so let's forget that I said that. So, let's be realistic here, and just admit that Mamet is wrong, because as humans we are driven by our emotions, and so even if we tried to do something with no emotion it would be impossible, and if you don't agree with me, I can just use Mamet's own logic to prove my point, which proves him wrong. He says, "Our emotional-psychological makeup is such that our only response to an order to think or feel anything is rebellion" (11). Well, that's too bad, since that means that being told to perform a great deed without any emotion will only lead to rebellion, meaning we will perform the deed with great emotion. And just because I've torn him down so much, I'll give Mamet a chance to reinforce my argument that his argument is flawed. At least he gets some points for something, right? But even Mamet states that "the response to an emotional demand is antagonism and rebellion" (11). Good, now to see how that plays out please see below:
Mamet: Oh, you stupid actors who will certainly butcher my beautifully crafted play with your silly need to infuse it with that terrible thing called emotion, I demand that you read, oh, oh, I mean, perform, yes, perform my play as a great deed with no emotion whatever.
ReplyDeleteActors: No emotion whatever?
Mamet: Yes, perform this great deed with no emotion whatever.
(The actors are troubled by this request and feel anxiety about it.)
***
Please note that anxiety is an emotion. Mamet is wrong. If he were right, there would be no need to attempt to prepare for performances, unless that preparation included becoming completely emotionless somehow.
But as a playwright you jus assumed that the actors would feel anxiety. Maybe they will, but they may not. The possibility of it being something other than anxiety is his argument. If you don't leave that door open, you're planning feelings. Emotional life is a byproduct of your actions onstage. Mamet doesn't hate emotion. He doesn't want his actors deciding how they should feel before they hit the stage.
DeleteFair point, but why leave it up to chance? I think there is value in understanding how they want to feel on stage. I'm all for the spontaneity of performance and the emotional charges that each performance brings to the performer, but I also think that it's important to know what the characters feel, to attempt to identify with that, to have a goal for how one should feel as the character on stage. (I admit, I was being a dick when I wrote that short skit, but I don't take it back.)
DeleteOkay, onward and upward to the part about Helping The Play...
ReplyDeleteActually, before I answer your questions, I'd like to say that this is an absolutely ridiculous argument that he's making here when he writes, "Most plays are better read than performed. Why? Because the feelings the play awakens as we read it are called forth by the truth of the uninflected interactions of the characters.... The words are the same, but the truth of the moment is cloyed by the preconceptions of the actors, 'by feelings' derived in solitude and persisted in, in spite of the reality of the other actor" (65). At this point, I just want him to stop talking because the idiocy of his argument is hurting my head. Truth?! Really?! Okay, well then is he talking about truth or Truth? And while we're at it, let's just talk about "The Real," but not specify which real we are discussing. Is it the fictive real? The imagined real? The corporeal real? Truth is such a loaded word, and to throw it around without unpacking it is dangerous and stupid. What truth is cloyed? His truth? Someone else's truth? The truth of the writing? The truth of the performance? The truth of the corporeal body? The truth of the paper? I mean, what truth is he talking about? Worse still, can we go back to that first sentence where he wrote, "Most plays are better read than performed"? How can he even make this argument? According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, play is defined in many ways, most of those ways involving action. However, there are two definitions which are relevant here, "play (noun): 7. the stage representation of an action or story; a dramatic composition: drama" (n.p.). And that same online dictionary defines drama as, "a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance : play" (n.p.). So a play, by its very nature is intended "to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance." I just want to let that sink in for a second. When a play is only read and not performed, it (usually) does not fulfill its purpose. Plays are written to be performed. And sure staged readings, chamber theatre, readers theatre, all of these things are types of performance, but for the most part chamber theatre and readers theatre are becoming obsolete. And staged readings often lack what a full theatrical performance is able to provide. The body is just as important to the action of the play as the voice/words, but it seems as though Mamet has either forgotten this, or is not interested in the body at all. Considering his stance, I wonder why he writes plays at all. Why not just stick to non-fiction, essays, and fiction?
I believe that Mamet is arguing that the imagination and one's true character are only fertile when they are devoid of all emotion. Of course, we are always filled with emotion, a point Mamet concedes, "There is nothing we feel nothing about" (65), which means that certainly our imaginations are infertile and our will, our true character must be deficient. Clearly imagination, intellect, emotion, and character can't co-exist in the same body without one part of the body crippling another. I mean, well-rounded people don't exist or anything, right?
ReplyDeleteFurther, Mamet writes, "What is required is not the intellect to 'help the play,' but the wisdom to refrain" (66). So we should refrain from helping the play with intellect or emotion. We should become stupid and unfeeling. Apparently we should become zombies if we wish to help the play (or the screenplay in this case). We should become mature zombies "capable of decision based on will" (66). Oh, wait! Do zombies have a will? I don't think they do. Bad example.
Moving on to Acceptance... (God help us all!)
ReplyDeleteWhat's that AA prayer? God grant me the courage to change the things that I can change, the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference. I'm pretty sure that's how it goes. Anyway, yes, let's talk about acceptance.
Mamet writes, "The capacity to accept: to wish things to happen as they do. It is the root of all happiness in life, and it is the root of wisdom for an actor" (70). Yes, a car accident involving me happens and I should accept it, by which I mean to say, I should wish that the car accident involving me happened. It will make me happy in my life. It is wise. (Does this sound insane to anyone else?) Or how about we relate it to the filming of the screenplay, since that's what we're supposed to do anyway. If the screenplay called for the actor to do something dangerous, Mamet would tell the actor to just wish for it to happen as it does and to be happy about it. WHAT?! Let's forget the danger for a second and just consider that he's asking us to accept some pre-written fate that extends beyond the character that he has written (or whomever has written) and into our own bodies. By just wishing things to happen as they do we are handing over our free will to the writer, not just the free will of the character, but OUR free will. We are saying, "Here's my corporeal body, the one which your character shares, please do to it whatever you would like and I will just accept it and be happy. You want to hurt me? That's cool. You want to make me vulnerable? Sure. You want to project a voyeuristic gaze upon my body? No problem. Exploitation? Yeah, I'm down with that. I mean, I just wish that things will happen the way that they do and I'll be happy about it." In every screenwriting and playwriting book that I have read the authors have warned against passive characters, characters who just let things happen to them, but who do not take an active role in the action of their world. This is the very thing that Mamet is advocating for, except that he takes it outside of the world of the characters and projects it upon the lived world wherein his actors reside. He's not happy enough to strip the theatrical action from the play, reducing it to no more than words. No, Mamet wants to make his actors passive as well. He wants them to let life happen to them when they are under his direction, and he doesn't want them to react to life, because reacting to life, because rejecting his notion of acceptance, means that his words are no longer the absolute "truth," whatever that even means, because suddenly other people matter too, and it's not just about him and his characters.
Let's call it what it is: a flawed argument made to stroke the ego of a wordsmith who forgot that his craft requires actors (who live and breathe and feel) to bring his work to life on a stage.
Also, if you want a bibliography, I can provide one as long as you can provide me with the appropriate Mamet info. The Auslander piece that I was quoting was "Musical Personae" in Drama Review 50.1 (2006): 100-118. Print.
ReplyDeleteAncestor Worship:
ReplyDeleteIt is peculiar that someone as familiar with acting training and the history of acting theory would repeat the canard of substituting Lee Strasberg's ideas and emphases for Stanislavsky. Focus on creating emotional moments through affective memory is a small, and ultimately discarded subject in Stanislavsky's own work, as Adler and Meisner insisted for more than 40 years. Perhaps Mamet at this point is fed up with Studio actors, or people who want to be studio actors, but he paints with a broad and largely unrealistic brush the state and methods of contemporary actor training. Mamet's own school at the Atlantic is strongly rooted in Stanislavsky techniques of objectives, actions, and given circumstances, and such an emphasis is far more widespread than Mamet chooses to acknowledge. As such, training focused on "merely" communicating a play to an audience is still required, as this appears to be an elusive goal. Even Mamet suggests that actors require strong voices, bodies, and "rudimentary" understanding, all of which can effectively be developed through training.
The apparently incendiary implication is that the actor should exercise no direct agency in the act of performance. Mamet is not wrong that actors can incorporate a "method" that conflicts with the author's intentions, and as an author is understandably frustrated by the prospect. His admonition that actors "do nothing" and allow the actions, as written, to tell the story is one that can be particularly effective for a certain genre, that happens to coincide with Mamet's penchant for existential naturalism in his plays and movies. But while this may be the kind of performance that Mamet likes to watch, it is difficult to argue that it would be the proper approach to all styles of performance.
Training probably cannot make a great actor out of someone with no natural ability, but it can allow people with desire, drive, and talent to experiment and deepen their own approach to their craft. The entire premise of the Actor's Studio in the 1950's and 1960's was to create an environment for established actors to explore without the economic pressures of commercial work. Whether this kind of approach will be successful or not, of course, depends on the individual actor, and talented actors have found their experiences at various institutions accordingly inconsistent.
Mamet's taste in acting happens to correspond reasonably well with much of the commercial theatre, and more of commercial film, so his approach to acting ought to be significantly practicable in professional environments. He has his cake and gets to eat it when he suggests that talented actors are "chosen" and then "do nothing" since at that point the performer has a lot that he/she is already bringing to any given moment and likely, for commercial projects, needs most to get out of his/her own way.
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ReplyDelete