Ancestor Worship

In the first lines of this chapter Mamet calls Stanislavsky an amateur. Essentially making all of that reading last semester feel worthless. It felt even more worthless as I continued reading and finding myself agreeing with everything Mamet said. I agree that there is only an ills ion of a character on stage. You are your self and can not "become" a character for a play. The audience knows that this is all an illusion. I also agree with the concept that trying or achieving to reach a required emotional state only takes the actor out of the play. I can't tell you how many times I forget what's happening on stage because I'm trying so hard to get myself to think or feels something that I believe I should be thinking or feeling at the time regardless of the stimulation from the outside. Mamet does end up going on about how Stanislavsky's method is "hogwash" as he dubs it. I feel that this comes in part from his dislike of formal training and I get it. Stanislavsky = bad. He almost says it to much...