The Great Acting Blog: “David Mamet Directs”

The Great Acting Blog: “David Mamet Directs”

 

I stumbled upon this old, 1980 Creative Arts Television production about David Mamet rehearsing two of his plays, Dark Pony and Reunion, at The Circle Repertory Theatre in New York City. It’s like drama school in 30 minutes, not to mention fascinating in it’s own right.

Mamet is one of the great playwrights and directors, and certainly a big hero of mine. He pushes dramatic action to the forefront of the work, as a means of fitting the actor into the play and helping them to actually act. I wish more actors and directors worked in this way, it’s fun and is the only way of delivering truthful, organic performances. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, I’ve written some notes below. However, there is nothing quite like seeing a young David Mamet in full flow, and the wonderful responses of the actors cannot be properly expressed in text.

– Says we have to be “vicious” in getting our objectives.

– Says the thing that will destroy a play is mood: not what do I want but what are we feeling.

– Says that the theatre director was a job invented in the 20th century. Before then plays were directed by stage managers or the authors. That in 1980, we’re coming back to authors directing their own plays – Miller’s doing  it, so is Albee.

– Says Stanislavsky said that the person you are is more interesting than the best actor you could ever become.

– Says the actor doesn’t have to be interesting, that’s the author’s job.

– Says when you see actors in different plays doing repertory, you get to see what the director added to it and what the writer added to it.

– Says when we see an actor in 30 different roles over a career, like Claude Rains, we develop an affection for him and a knowledge of him.

– He uses only two chairs as set: for a living room in Reunion, and as a car in Dark Pony. Says the audience will supply the automobile (in their own minds).

– Says “scenic truth” is most important: what are the characters doing to each other, not what did they have for breakfast.

– Says actors should not do that which puts forward the character, but that which puts forward the play.

– Says that in performance, if you need to think back to the rehearsal process to supply what’s needed, then the moment is already gone.

– Says a person has only so much concentration, if it’s on yourself then it can’t be on your object, on what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re concentration is on the thing you’re trying to accomplish then it can’t be on yourself – as Freud said, a man with toothache can’t be in love. The idea is not to force concentration, but to put it on something more interesting than him or herself – i.e. the person you’re dealing with at that moment.

– Says we just want to respond, don’t add anything, don’t narrate the play, like British handkerchief actors who show 15 things about their characters by using a handkerchief.

– Says the whole point of rehearsal is to bring out the play through the actors, everything else is secondary. This means teaching the actors the score of the play, like you teach a musician a piece of music, and the score of the play is the actions. It’s not the appearance, not the emotions, it’s what the character actually does. So in rehearsal, the actor needs to make it clear through explanation, through repetition, through examination, what the character in the play actually does, physically. What the character does is the score of the play.

– Playing moment-to-moment is the actor’s main responsibility.

– Says looking for the answer in the other actor brings you to life, looking in yourself kills you.

– Says Stanislavsky said there were three types of actors; the cliched actor who only imitates on stage what he’s seen other actors do, the mechanical actor who goes home and works out what the character in the play should look and sound like, then come in and give his rendition of it, then there is the organic actor who strives to understand what the character wants, then go on stage every night and try to accomplish that, so what you see is an improvisation bounded by the direction and script and your understanding of it, creating fresh organic life every night. Organic moments we see on stage become parts of our life.

 

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