"The best theatre book I read this year. The remarkable thing is its lack of bunk. Actors and watchers of actors will find it a book to mark up and read again."--Dan Sullivan, Los Angeles Times
Read More
"The best theatre book I read this year. The remarkable thing is its lack of bunk. Actors and watchers of actors will find it a book to mark up and read again."--Dan Sullivan, Los Angeles Times
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 174 p. May show signs of wear, highlighting, writing, and previous use. This item may be a former library book with typical markings. No guarantee on products that contain supplements Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Twenty-five year bookseller with shipments to over fifty million happy customers.
"Advice to the Players" is a practical by-the-numbers (in a very goal-oriented way) acting instruction book written by Robert Lewis, based on his extensive acting and teaching experience in the theatre. It is a text for the actor or group of actors who have a basic understanding of the technique needed for presenting an acting text for performance.
The slim 174-page book also offers an introduction by Harold Clurman and a good supply of exercises for relaxation, improvisation, and other physical development. It's a good measure of many acting instruction texts to see how the writer approaches and explicates the areas of sub-textual elements, and emotion. Because these two amorphous areas seem too undefined by many 'practical' acting teachers, the tendency is to create pat explanations.
In Chapter 1, "Relaxation and Energizing", Lewis lays out some physical exercises that allow the actor to first gain awareness of parts of his body, and ways to relax them so they can be utilized fully for any acting challenge.
Lewis also creates a semiotic code system of tiny little men (looking something like the stick figures from "The Blair Witch Project"). These figures show the actor what stance to take for the exercises. The physical preparatory movements do work, and any actor can use them for acting or for other physical activities such as Tennis.
Another section that makes Robert Lewis' book exceptional is Chapter 6 "Intention" in which the author paraphrases intention as the "process, which is ever-present in acting." It is the objective that the character has in mind, or the action of the character. As Lewis puts it: "Intention is what you are really doing on the stage at any given moment, regardless of what you are saying ... or not saying." It's the base. "The sense of the play is carried through the intention". As with the other areas of his acting technique Lewis supports his text with and "Intention" exercise, which the actor can work through to further understand the value of the technique.
Another clear and defining section is Chapter 8 "Work on Roles", in which Lewis outlines the process for the actor to uncover and define the areas of a character in a script, beginning from first reading, to production talk, through subtext (intentions).
Lewis illustrates how to write notes in a script in the blank left side for the actor to understand how to build on a basic starting point in a script. When working on a published script and actor can photocopy the script and mount the pages in a binder- this gives him more room all around. Within this note-taking technique Lewis also explains a very smart way to work with the other elements the actor confronts, namely the emotional level.
In Chapter 9 "Emotions" Lewis puts it all together and shows how the intentions and the emotions can all be noted with the outer elements of staging and acting. As Lewis puts it: "... emotion is something that is always present in one form or another and is sometimes so subtle that it is unidentifiable."
It's a good thing to understand the terms of the 'method' system because Lewis does talk about Affective Memory and how this applies to delineating an emotional preparation. Taken all together "Advice to the Players" is a well crafted, and practical text and one that any student of acting can grasp an additional kernel of understanding from.
