Ed Hooks' Monthly Newsletter
March 2000
Until next month...Be Safe!
LABAN! LABAN! LABAN!
HEARTFELT THANKS to Jean Newlove and John Dalby for two outstanding workshops in Laban Movement Theory. The actors and dancers who took the workshops know that John Dalby's voice training, which was coordinated with the Laban theories, turned out to be marvelous icing on the cake. Even I got up and sang! As soon as I can find time to do it, I'll post some photos from the workshop in the Internet. By the way, John Dalby will be sending copies of his voice book and tape to me from London. If you want a copy, the cost is $17. Let me know, and I'll put your name on the book list.

CRAFT NOTES
"Hooks on Mamet"

Playwright David Mamet wrote "True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" (Vintage Books, 1997), a book that created a big dust-up among acting teachers and acting schools. In it, he asserts that most acting teachers are charlatans and frauds, that most acting training is a waste of time and that most of the principles espoused by Constantin Stanslavski -- and popularized by Lee Strasberg (Method Acting) -- are without merit. It is his opinion that most acting schools are self-serving, motivated by a financial desire to keep tuition-paying students in a subservient position. Having seen more than my share of badly trained, self-indulgent aspiring actors, I would tend to agree with him on that score.

Acting begins with the actor - audience "contract", not with being able to cry or express anger. As Mamet points out, much of what passes for respectable acting training today is really a form of emotional self involvement, and it doesn't even have much to do with acting. It's closer to psychotherapy. Some actors spend years in classes where they dredge up this emotion and that one, "freeing" themselves. And after they've done all of that, they still can't act.

It is worth remembering that acting training such as we know it is a recent development. Before the late 1800's, actors learned their craft by apprenticing themselves to acting companies. A new actor would carry spears, do the small roles, and watch the masters at work. They got up in front of the audience right away. Stanislavski was influenced by Freud and Pavlov, and he began experimenting with the development of emotional triggers. It was this focus that Strasberg later picked up and translated into Method Acting. But, as time went by, Stanislavski himself changed his mind, focusing more on physical action and imagination than on emotional stimulation. Strasberg rejected the change in focus and stuck with the emotional work. It is from Strasberg that most contemporary American acting training descended. Sanford Meisner broke away from Strasberg and put his own spin on things, but in my opinion, the Meisner Technique also tends to puts too much stress on emotional stimulation and not enough on the actor-audience contract.

Peter Brook, one of the few true geniuses when it comes to acting theory, points out that an actor needs to maintain three tension lines -- one between the himself and himself (that's the emotional line), one between himself and his scene partner and one between himself and the audience. If any one of those lines goes slack for even a moment, the theatrical transaction (the contract) is broken. Meisner and Strasberg do not generally approach things this way. They focus on only two of those tension lines. (Yes, you should read Peter Brooks's books. Go to my web site (http://www.edhooks.com) for a list.

An actress I know told me about her early experiences at the Strasberg Institute in Los Angeles. After a year there, she felt she was not cut out to be an actor because she had never been able to achieve "total concentration", to the point where she would be oblivious to the audience. I explained that she was not supposed to be oblivious to the audience, that the audience is why she's on the stage in the first place. If the actor becomes oblivious to the audience, in fact, the audience will get nervous.

My main quibble with David Mamet is his insistence that the playwright carries most of the water. "The actor", he says, should "....open the mouth, stand straight and say the words bravely -- adding nothing, denying nothing...". He claims there is no "arc of character" and the playwright has already provided the only "arc of the play". He has no patience for actors who want to analyze their roles, do a character biography, and interpret things. He wants the actors to say the words as written, approximating the actions and objectives that the playwright has provided. When he talks like this, it feels a little bit like Mamet wishes he didn't have to fool with actors at all, that the playwright could do directly to the audience, like Sophocles used to do.

I can appreciate that a well-made play does not need embellishment, but I personally learned the most about acting from appearing in BAD plays off-off Broadway. Unfortunately, most playwrights are not as gifted as Mr. Mamet is. Also, some playwrights enjoy the collaborative process, actually want the actor's input! Not Mamet. He wants to do it himself.

It is my view that actors are artists, same as playwrights, musicians, and painters. A person will go to see "Hamlet" many times, not because he didn't grasp the play the first time, but because he wants to see different interpretations. I have seen brave Hamlets, superstitious Hamlets, half-crazy Hamlets.....and they were all valid. Maybe Shakespeare didn't envision a half-crazy Hamlet, but we would be poorer if all subsequent productions and interpretations had been precisely as Shakespeare dictated. To me, theatre evolves, and the playwright's words are a frame. Say them precisely, but bring to it your own perspectives.

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