Writing the Acting Book

I have on many occasions been asked where it is possible to find my ideas on acting written in some book form. I am always surprised that a four hundred page blog will not suffice.

But then again, I do particularly understand the credibility that a published book on acting brings and so have started off down the necessary pathway to write a book on acting.

But there’s a problem. Generally speaking I detest acting books. I await their arrival like a child at Christmas, only to find them full of the impracticable. So writing a book on acting is challenging to me specifically because I believe that most books on acting are well intentioned twaddle.

So for a year or more, I’ve collected my thoughts, articles and blogs and attempted to shape them into a book on acting. But really it was just a hundred page collection of ideas and had no real through-line.

So I scrapped the creation of the original book, and have set out to give my ideas a new form.

There are two main sources of inspiration for this new book. The first is that after Mamet set off a bomb with True and False, he didn’t really stick around to explain himself. So part of the book focuses on being clearer about Practical Aesthetics and the natural evolution of PA, which is the way that I teach it.

Shortly before I quit my conservatory teaching job, I was reminded by my boss that I had said once that I couldn’t teach anything I didn’t believe in. (This statement was being used against me, as if principled beliefs are unacceptable). Well that’s still the case, and this book reflects my work with actors of all levels, as we struggle to free ourselves from the quagmire of bullshit, into which acting has sunk.

The second focus for the book is that I believe that Stanislavski, heavily influenced by Shchepkin, made some mistaken assumptions in his great contribution to acting. One, that a character is a real, three dimensional, psychological being and two that through special training and the development of skill, an actor can create this character and fully inhabit it as a valid addition to the actor’s own self. Of course, this is going to upset people, but it doesn’t take away from the respect I have for Constantine and his picture still hangs on the wall of my studio. His contribution to acting was monumental but it IS possible that he got something wrong. Our entire way of acting for over a hundred years has been predicated on these ideas and so I think it’s okay to challenge them.

The remainder of the book relates to actively putting our philosophy of acting into practice. And covers technique, training, character, script, rehearsal and performance.

Well, there’s still a lot to write but it’s been good to share my outline with you.

Have a great weekend!