Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Mamet: The Generation That Would Like to Stay in School & Scholarship

The next few chapters were about Mamet's feelings on graduate school and other such programs. I am fond of Mamet's opinions on graduate school. I have considered going to one in the past, but the idea of higher student loans has kind of killed it for me. Also, I don't believe it is necessary to do so to become an actor. I'm not looking to become the most well-trained actor of all time. To quote Mamet, "Formal education for the player is not only harmful, but useless." I think that this is true, because after struggling to read through just one of Stanislavski's books, I was deeply confused about HOW to act. I was trying to pick things out of that book to help me better myself while acting. And all I got out of it was CONFUSION. I can in no way make sense of the Stanislavski method...it's too complex for me.
I believe that some people are born with a specific talent or "gift"...I don't really think that a ton of formal training is going to help you if you don't have that natural instinct of how to act. I do not believe that people have to go to school to play sports. That seems highly useless. Perhaps this idea is because I do not like a challenge, and I'm willing to admit that. However, I will take challenges when it comes to roles...such as when I played Cassius. I was very scared of that part of a while, but once I finally got over a few hurdles, I was able to better connect with him.

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