Clearly presented techniques, practice, and pointers for aspiring and working actors.
Kava presents a learning-by-doing actors’ guide to improvisation, play analysis, and performance.
Subtitled “All-purpose recipes for the actor,” this well-organized primer, delivered in conversational segments, was inspired by what has been many a home cook’s bible since 1931:Joy of Cooking. The author is a playwright and veteran actor of stage, television, and film who has taught acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Barnard College, and other universities. Here, she draws upon her training in the Meisner technique under famed acting teacher Sanford Meisner to clarify “the fundamentals” of the Meisner exercises and discuss “how they could be directly applied” to professional work. Chapters encompass individual, partner, and collaborative work, arranged under three headings: “Improvisation,” “The Spoon River Exercise,” and “Acting in a Play and a Scene.” Part I, consisting of five chapters, begins with “Repetition: The Language of Improvisation,” an exercise that, Kava writes, may be the “most significant innovation to Stanislavski’s core technique.” It includes three levels of practice with a duration of one to two weeks and a fourth level to practice “ad infinitum” as a career-long “second language.” Subsequent chapters progress through “The Independent Activity,” “The Objective and The Emotional Preparation,” “Relationships,” and “The Full Improvisation.” Part II uses text from Edgar Lee Masters’ classic Spoon River Anthology (1915) in an 11-step exercise covering such subjects as choice of text to emotional preparation for interpretation through performance and improvisation. In Part III, the author breaks down the process for performance with a multifaceted approach to analysis, table reads, rehearsals, and improvisation—using her own published version of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (2019) and Shakespeare’s Othello as examples. Throughout the book are tips, answers to actors’ potential questions, and definitions of terms designed for visual and contextual clarity. The exercises and processes are further clarified in illustrations presented in a simple, cartoon-strip format. This “recipe book” ends with an inspirational personal note to actors from the author.
Clearly presented techniques, practice, and pointers for aspiring and working actors.Pub Date: May 19, 2023
ISBN: 9798379201784
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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