David Mamet: Lessons Learned
Love him or loathe him, David Mamet has influenced the shape of Western Theatre through his dramatic writing and his writing on the practise of acting, writing, directing for theatre, film and television. He’s always been my greatest influence, a man who speaks his mind, who never fell for the bullsh*t around acting and who practises what he preaches.
Here’s a summation of some of the lessons learned on acting through Mamet’s own quotations:
DAVID MAMENT ON PUNCTUALITY
This person walked in maybe, maybe seven or eight minutes late and he [Mamet] yelled at them at the top of his lungs. He said: “I can’t teach you how to act but don’t you ever insult anyone and waste their time by being late. No Excuses. That’s all I can really teach you today.”
DAVID MAMET ON THE BASIC JOB OF THE ACTOR
“What they should do is they should learn their lines, understand very, very simply what the character in the script is doing, and try to find a congruent action for themselves, which is physically capable of being done.”
DAVID MAMET ON ACTOR TRAINING
“A good actor trains his voice and body and analytical powers even though this training is taxing and no one may ever notice”
DAVID MAMET ON ACTING TEACHERS
“If you don’t understand the teacher, make the teacher explain. If they are incapable of either explaining or demonstrating to your satisfaction the worth of their insights, they do not what what they are doing.”
DAVID MAMET ON ACTING TECHNIQUE
“The task of any artist is not to learn many, many techniques but to learn the most simple technique perfectly.”
DAVID MAMET ON SCENE ANALYSIS
“Every scene should be able to answer three questions: “Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?”
DAVID MAMET ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING AN OBJECTIVE
“A child who doesn’t want to go to bed. A lover who wants a second chance. A man or woman who wants a job. Someone who wants to get laid. There’s nothing that these people won’t do. And that’s called having an objective. Having an objective is just a fancy word for wanting something real, real bad. When all of us, or any of us, are in these situations, there’s nothing we won’t do. All our attention is on the other person. And we’ll change horses in the middle of the stream to do anything to get them to give us what we want. Now when you see that in an actor on the stage it’s awfully damned compelling. Because what the great actor is doing on stage is changing his or her tactics to get what they need from the other person on stage, rather than performing what they dreamed up at home.”
Hope you are as inspired by him as I have been over the years. The man just talks common sense.