An Actor’s Life
Posted by Martha Lavey on 8/10/2006I’m thinking a lot about actors at the moment. Two reasons: yesterday, I attended and participated in something called the Actors’ Congress; and today, I watched two groups of scenes by actors in the School at Steppenwolf.
The Actors’ Congress was a day-long seminar organized by Michael Miller, the director of the Actors’ Center in New York and Chicago actors Carmen Roman and Kate Buddeke of the American Theatre Company. The day consisted of a series of panels featuring: Chicago drama critics; long-time Chicago actors; early-career Chicago actors; and artistic directors of Chicago theaters who are also actors. The audience was comprised of Chicago actors and much discussion was encouraged of topics important to actors in the conduct of their careers.
The scenes today from the School at Steppenwolf represent the final work of 24 actors enrolled in the School. This is the 9th year of the School at Steppenwolf, a ten-week program for working actors, with instructors from the Steppenwolf ensemble and colleague Chicago theater practitioners. The goal of the School, which was founded by Jeffrey Perry, one of the co-founders of Steppenwolf, is to offer training in the philosophy and practice of ensemble acting.
Experiencing these two events in rapid succession – two events that follow pretty fast upon my own recent foray on the stage with Love-Lies-Bleeding – has me thinking about a whole complex of issues surrounding the life of an actor. The Actors’ Congress tended to feature aspects of the career – its travails, its joys, its possibilities. The work of the school was an immersion – actors in practice of, and implicitly, in celebration of, the art. My own recent experience on stage provoked an awareness of both – the art and the career.
First of all, my being on stage is a kind of luxury – the thing I get to do in addition to my on-going job as artistic director. Therefore, the career anxieties that are part and parcel of the working actor’s life are not mine. (When the show closes, I go right back to work – thus: to a reliable income; to a place, surrounded by like-minded colleagues; and to a purpose. These are luxuries not assured to the free-lance actor).
My encounter with these three events – the Congress, the School scenes, and my own performance as an actor – makes very visible to me the rather crazy facts of an actor’s life. Threading through all of them is this unaccountable passion – choosing to be an actor makes no sense – the career is unreliable, even if you’re good you can sometimes be bad in a particular production, or you can be good but be in a bad production, or you can be good and find yourself in a bad career (not enough work, not enough money in the work you get). It’s crazy. And then, here are these actors, training at the School, very much invested in developing their craft, very much dedicated to making a career. And the actors at the Congress – listing the challenges (bordering on indignities) and the satisfactions of their lives.
One of the themes of the Congress was money – and its analogue, power. Actors – not stars: working actors – are almost universally underpaid. And as to power: actors are often the last to know – the last party consulted in the decision-making chain of a production. Actors know this – or, quickly figure this out – and yet we keep acting, we keep pursuing the singular joy of being on stage.
And I wondered: is this the price we demand of our artists? Is this the toll we extract of those people living out their dreams? If, as a society, we grant expressiveness, eccentricity, emotional freedom to a group of people, do we insist that they trade the joy and exuberance and release for economic security and social agency? Is the deal that: you can be and actor but only at the peril of your economic well-being and social standing?
What do you think? Is that the deal? And if so, is it a fair deal? (And I ask that sincerely – maybe that is the deal. Maybe the risk of an artistic life is a needful crucible to the passion).
Any thoughts on this? Any alternate models you can propose?
August 10th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
George Orwell listed four motivations that he believed all writers share in “Why I Write”: Sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. I think actors (and probably all artists) share in some combination of those reasons for doing what we do. And all four of those motivations, for me at least, are more important than the motivation to be financially secure.
I also think that having a high tolerance for ambiguity is a necessary tool for an actor to have, since, as you point out, there’s never a guarantee that a working actor will still be working after the show they’re in at the moment. And certainly it helps to keep us all hungry (literally and metaphorically) and keep our skills sharpened.
That said, though, I don’t think I’m comfortable with the idea that the level of risk that actors must endure is a “needful crucible” - I think it’s more a response to the economic realities of theatre. Good theatre usually doesn’t make good money. Steppenwolf is a shining exception to this rule (we’re lucky to have a few such exceptions in Chicago), but you’re always going to make more money on a revival of Cats than you are on a production that fulfills the four motivations Orwell listed. And since we know we won’t make lots of money doing good theatre with most theatre companies, and since we know (to borrow another metaphor from writing) we can’t not act, we make the decision to put up with the risk. Maybe it makes us better actors, but it’s not a trial that we must go through to develop our acting chops.
At least hopefully not for much longer.