Read Online True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet - Free Book Online Page B

be
reverent
to the script—you are at work. Not only is it the simple solution to a seemingly complex problem, it is the right solution. Not only is it the right solution, it is the only solution.

GUILT
    A ny system built on belief functions through the operations of guilt and hypocrisy. Such a system, whether of acting training, meditation, self-improvement, etc., functions as a pseudo-religion, and is predicated on the individual’s knowledge of his or her own worthlessness. The system holds itself out as the alleviator, cleanser, and redeemer of the guilty individual.
    Now, none of us is free of self-doubt, and none of us is free of guilt. We all have thoughts, feelings, episodes, and tendencies which we would rather did not exist.
    A guilt-based educational system, which is to say, most acting training, survives through the support of adherents
who were guilty before they signed up
, who came to classes and failed (how could they do otherwise, as the training was nonsense), and were then informed that their feelings of shame—which they brought
in
with them—were due to their failure in class, and could bealleviated if and only if the student worked harder and “believed” more.
    Faced with nonsensical, impossible directions (“Feel the music with your arms and legs”; “Put yourself into the state you were in when your puppy died”; “Create a Fourth Wall between yourself and the audience”), the victim can choose one or both of the following choices: to strive guiltily to fulfill the demands, or to claim, falsely, that she has succeeded in doing so.
    Both voices keep the student tied to the institution, the first out of guilt, and the second out of a (correct) apprehension: “I have succeeded here, but I fear my merit, like the soft currency of a bankrupt country, is dispensable only in these limited surroundings, and will not transfer to the outside world” (the stage).
    Curiously, the state these systems profess to cure—anxiety, guilt, nervousness, self-consciousness, ambivalence—is the human condition (at least in the postindustrial age) and, coincidentally, the stuff of art. Nobody with a happy childhood ever went into show business. The states enumerated are what impelled you to go into the theatre in the first place. Psychoanalysis hasn’t been able to cure them in a hundred years, and an acting school isn’t going to cure them in two easy terms. They are part of life and they are part of our age and, again, they are at the
center
of not only your, but the universal, longing for drama.
    You went into the theatre to get an explanation. That is why everyone goes into the theatre. The audience,just like you, came to have its anomie, anxiety, guilt, uncertainty, and disconnectedness dealt with. Your responsibility to them is this: deal with your own.
    Your fear, your self-doubt, your vast confusion (you are facing an ancient mystery—drama—of course you’re confused) do not
mar
you. At the risk of nicety, they
are
you. Sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich or an academician won’t do the trick, if the trick is to bring the play to the audience.
    What
will
do the trick? Well, as in any situation where one is lost, it is helpful to acknowledge one’s state. We can say, “I’d be able to orient myself if I just knew where I was”; or “I’ll go on a diet as soon as I’ve lost some weight”; or “I’ll begin to
seriously
attempt to understand the art of the actor, and the requirements that art makes on me, as soon as I know what I’m doing.”
    When you accept that you
don’t
know what you are doing, you put yourself in the same state as the protagonist in the play. Just like him, you are faced with a task whose solution is hidden from you. Just like the protagonist, you are confused, frightened, anxious. Just like him, your certainties will prove false, and humble you; you will be led down long paths and have to turn back; your rewards will come from unexpected quarters. This