Mamet: The Rehearsal Process, The Play and The Scene and Emotions

The Rehearsal Process: Once again, Mamet thinks that the rehearsal process used by most actors is incredibly too long. He thinks that rehearsals need only be used for the actors to learn their blocking and their actions. I kind of agree with him, but I personally need to rehearse to learn my lines efficiently.

The Play and The Scene: Mamet thinks that an actor should pay attention to each scene separately, as opposed to the play as a whole. This kind of makes sense to me; it's almost like "living in the moment". Which is good for the believability of a performance...a character should not know what is going to happen next and if an actor focuses on scene to scene, this would help.

Emotions: In this chapter, Mamet talks about how actors can learn how to act, but the learning and teaching must happen on the stage. This is a good point; I can sit in a classroom for hours being told how to act, I can read for hours about acting, but it will do me no good if I cannot get out there and experience it for myself. This is where I find a fault in Mamet's teachings. This goes back to how he thinks plays are better read than performed; but if an actor needs to perform in order to learn...how does this make sense?