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Pro and AmDateline: 9th June, 2002 There have been a number of letters in "The Stage" recently in which amateurs and professionals have been taking a swipe at each other. Coincidentally, not long ago there was a discussion about what constitutes amateur and professional in one of the newsgroups. It's a perennial argument and a singularly pointless one, but, for what it's worth, I feel impelled to chuck in my two-penn'orth! The point of the argument is, of course, whether the two words imply a judgement of quality: is a professional show, by its nature, better than an amateur show? is a professional actor better than an amateur actor? A professional actor is trained, one side argues. But what of the trained actor who choses to work for nothing, either because the show is a fringe production which might attract the notice of a promoter, or because he's "resting" and welcomes the chance to play a particular role, or because he's become a drama teacher and performs with an amateur society to "keep his hand in"? Does he become an amateur? Strictly speaking, of course, he does, because professional means being paid. Or does it? Does it not rather mean making his living from acting? But, if so, what of the huge numbers of actors who spend more time on the dole or working in, for example, a call centre between acting jobs? Or is it just what you call yourself? Take the business of working in a call centre: is it simply that one person calls himself a call centre worker and the other an actor who just happens to spend most of his time in a call centre? Loads of questions, and all arising from a choice of name. Perhaps the Americans have done the right thing by talking about community rather than amateur theatre? On the other hand, the Americans were just as vociferous in the newsgroup debate as the Brits, so perhaps not. One of the problems is that we tend to equate professional with "good" and amateur with "not so good", but we've all seen appalling professional productions and brilliant amateur ones. What it all boils down to is status. Modern society gives high status to the performer - we're a far cry from the days when actors were "rogues and vagabonds"! - and now people would much prefer to be called a singer than a car mechanic, a dancer than a secretary, or an actor than an accountant. The "professionals" (whatever that may mean) in these areas are jealous of their titles and their status. There is much more kudos attached to being an actor than to having a more mundane occupation. It's more glamorous and we want glamour in our lives. Even those who know it isn't glamorous - rehearsing in cold church halls or warehouses, maintaining the same level of performance whether you're feeling on top of the world or down in the depths, living in grotty digs as you trail from town to town - cling to that illusion. So the pro-am divide is an argument about status, nothing more. It's never going to go away, so shouldn't we just try to forget about it? No one's ever going to win the argument: carrying it on is only wasting energy. Let's channel that energy into our next show and get on with doing theatre. Articles Indices: |
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