Reviews for The Perfect Monologue: How to Find and Perform the Monologue That Will Get You the Part

The average rating for The Perfect Monologue: How to Find and Perform the Monologue That Will Get You the Part based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-02-17 00:00:00 Josef Costa "When an actor cannot be heard it is because he does not want to be heard! It usually has to do with personal insecurity, fear of communication, inadequate preparation, or simply shyness." Wow how dare this book call me out like that. This is a difficult book to rate, because all the information is definitely very helpful and useful, and I would 100% recommend it. But yet at the same time this book is literally 34 pages of information, with the rest being monologues. So I'm not sure where I sit, I'm just going to give it five stars for the quality of the information as this really did help me out a lot with my monologue I was preparing. And the writing is very easy to read, not dry at all. In saying all this, I spent $2 on this book from a second hand store and didn't pay the full price. I would recommend this book for sure, but it's up to the buyer if they want to pay full price for 34 pages.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-07-31 00:00:00 Kiko Paris I've read two other Mamet works (Oleanna & Glengarry Glen Ross) and thought they were terrific (especially Oleanna). So I was excited to read this book, which contains two plays. The first is an examination of modern relationships, and despite the title, it's not really about sex; although it is framed through modern views about sex and discusses the impact sex has on relationships. The play focuses on four characters: Bernie (a slimy lothario), his friend Dan, Deborah (whom Dan begins dating), and Joan (Deborah's friend). The play consists of a number of short scenes that alternate between the men by themselves and women by themselves discussing modern sex (fetishes, likes & dislikes) and relationships, and scenes tracing Dan's and Deborah's relationship (from meet-up to break-up). Mamet's point about relationships and their difficulty - whether the sex is fetishized or otherwise - is none too subtle. The second play stretches across fourteen short scenes where two old men sit on a park bench. The majority of their conversations revolve around the ducks they are watching, with a subtext of how the duck behaviors also speak to human behaviors (leadership, friendship, death, etc). Overall, I found both plays to be underwhelming, especially given my prior experiences with Mamet's works. There is no subtlety in Mamet's messages, and I felt both plays lacked depth (because of both content and length). This is a pass for me.