David Mamet's True and False

Mamet's book True and False starts with a slow first page and then you get to the second and read the words "That's what acting is. Doing the play for the audience. The rest is just practice." from that moment on I was hooked. Although I have read ahead I am going to try to cover only the first two chapters I suppose you could call them. I don't feel like this book is split into chapters as much as it is split into ideas. Hopefully by posting in smaller chunks I'll prevent my overgeneralizing topics. The first section is titled To the Actor. The section is short and basically tell you that Mamet is experienced and comes from a family of actors. He's been doing this for around thirty years now. Although it is short it sets you up for the rest of the book by telling you that this book is basically going to challenge everything you've been taught. By doing this Mamet hooked me in and I could hardly wait to read what came next. The second section is titled Some Thoughts. This second little introduction made me feel like Mamet knew me. He opens with a lists of feeling that I could identify with. Yes indeed I do feel confused, guilty, lost and ashamed as an actor. I then thought to myself "Oh my goodness is he going to tell me how to fix these feelings?"It is almost as if he is given words to the feelings you haven't been able to describe for yourself. Now I do wonder how much of this is my real feeling and how much of it is me latching on to something that "sound good". I suppose I'll just have to wait and see.