"...plenty of good bottom-line advice..."

Back Stage West, December 8-14, 2005

The Actor’s Menu
review by Jean Schiffman

In this self-published handbook, Bill Howey, a long-time acting teacher and coach, has chosen a food metaphor to chart out a tempting “menu” of acting techniques. The concept works pretty well throughout, with sections labeled “Appetizer,” “Entrée,” “Seasonings,” and so on. More important, Howey presents a no-nonsense reconstruction of that often misunderstood concept: character. “The myth about transformation, or ‘becoming’ a character, seems to come from the audience,” he writes. “But actors can no more transform themselves into another person than they can become a tree.”

Succinctly put. The book’s main emphasis is on knowing oneself profoundly enough—fears, inhibitions, “hidden acting agendas,” how you express your emotions, your deepest reasons for becoming an actor—to address this crucial question: “If the character [were] me, what would I do, what would I be like?” Howey adds, “It is an actor’s ideas, thoughts and attitudes that bring a character to life.”

There’s plenty of good bottom-line advice here for the emerging actor: Keep a rehearsal journal. Read lots of plays. Track your first impressions upon reading the script, no matter how irrelevant they seem, as they are valuable fuel for the creative process. And, “In a world where you are goaded to resemble others, your imagination is your guiding star.”

Howey goes off track with his insistence on figuring out how you “come across” to audiences and casting directors. Audiences, and the people that comprise them, differ; what moves one viewer might leave another cold, not to mention that viewers are also responding to the playwright’s work itself. And casting decisions at any given audition, which Howey mentions only briefly—may have little to do with your ability. So obsessing about your “effect” on audiences can be misleading.

And it’s odd that Howey devoted 10 full pages to describing human emotion—such as joy and hatred—and four and a half pages to glossary defining everyday words such as “imagine” and “assume”.

Still, his explanation of character is cogent; he covers the basics—objectives, subtext, listening, and the like—to good effect; and he offers helpful suggestions for classroom work, rehearsal techniques, and self-examination.

Compass Publishing, 2005, $14.95