Soul Shelter

Do actors have it the hardest of anybody seeking to balance fortune and fulfillment? We’re all familiar with the image of the hard-working waiter/waitress shuttling cups and plates by day in order to hit the stage by night, or maybe, by some glorious stroke of luck, break into the movies.

Barbara Rubenstein’s essay, a submission to our recent Soul Shelter Award, seemed a perfect fit for our new Creativity Vs. Commerce thread. Enjoy.

• Stalking the Spotlight by Barbara Rubenstein •

Announce, when a mere pipsqueak, that when you grow up you want to become an actor, and it’s a safe bet your family will clutch their hearts and moan: “Oh, m’god. You’re going to starve to death.”

It’s an even safer bet that your family will not moan: “Oh, m’god. You’re going to make it and you’ll never know the joy of being a true artist.”

It wasn’t until I was an actor and a grownup (though some people feel this is mutually exclusive!) that I questioned why it had to be “either/or.” Didn’t the audience, without whom we had no reason to perform, no need to communicate, have a say in the matter?

If the audience was moved, if they were touched even just by the release of laughter, did a ticket price or the easy accessibility of the subject matter negate the possibility that this could be art? Where did this “you must starve/suffer or you’re a soulless, commercial slickster” come from?

I’ve long suspected that it originated with whoever executed the breathtaking cave paintings in France. It’s easy to imagine the artist becoming so carried away depicting the hunt, that he forgot to participate in it. Thus provoking a visit from a clansman who announced, “Sorry to break the news, pal. I mean I like that Benjamin Moore red you’re putting on the rock and all but … you didn’t whack the mammoth today so you’re not getting any of its meat.”

This seems to have progressed through the ages to the romantic notion of the starving artist in a garret, a glass of wine and a sputtering candle by his side. It was no doubt advanced by all those not living in a crummy room, drinking bad vino and worrying about the candle burning down to a nub.

Once upon a time, back in New York after a nice run in a national company, I auditioned for an Off Broadway play. I was thrilled.

I couldn’t wait to read for a non-musical, perform in a drafty, leaky theatre, and get paid peanuts. In other words, I couldn’t wait to become fulfilled as an “artiste.”

An assistant handed out material which I expected to be a scene from the play. Instead, I was confronted with a three-page questionnaire which I was told to fill out for the director.

Question #1: How do you prepare your roles? I never read Question #2. This wasn’t a director, it was a pseudo-intellectual jerk.

I marched to the exit, finding to my surprise that another actor was busy actually filling out Question #1. Sneaking a peak over his shoulder (shades of a high-school geometry test), I discovered a kindred spirit. His answer in regard to his role preparation? “First I turn the oven on to 350.”

It’s surprising that any actor who’s ever experienced that breathless hush of a captive audience can still advance the “art vs. commerce” argument. But we’re great at it. We beat ourselves up with it.

There is an unofficial caste system at work in the acting world. Those actors who have made megabucks — but have done so via interesting work in worthy projects — are the gods and we bow low before them. Those who have been a member of an edgy Off-Off-B’way repertory company for years, while never being able to give up their day jobs, are our heroes and we mentally present them with medals. Those who work often, are able to pay their rent, and might even have a savings account, are only grudgingly given their due.

Growing up, I was aware of none of this. Entranced by acting at the age of six, I aimed myself like a tiny arrow at the target and let fly. My teachers (dance, voice, acting) were all pros who’d had careers. I absorbed the goal as well as the training: be a working professional. The art lay in being good enough to be hired by those who would actually pay you to do what you most loved to do.

It wasn’t until I was in college, a theatre major at a university with a department that had a national reputation, that I realized, “Muses, we have a problem.”

My teachers deemed me persona non grata for having gotten my Actors Equity union card after my sophomore year. They had not yet drilled me in all the paths to truth and beauty; I was not yet fully schooled in Chekhov, Greek drama, Ibsen. Who did I think I was? It was obvious from their point of view that I had traded youth, energy and personality for a technique. It was obvious that I’d confused a union contract with being a real actor.

Fast forward to the summer after graduation where I became a replacement in a musical/sketch comedy revue that was in town from New York. The show was a success, yet the star of the revue would make an audio tape of each performance and study it after the show. What hadn’t worked that night, and why not? What could still be improved upon?

Nothing could have been more commercial and out-for-the-tourist-bucks than this revue, yet the lead worked his tail off to perfect his “art.” It was a more valuable lesson than I’d learned in four years of college.

Only an actor, when spying a terrific role in a meaty, interesting script can cry, “This one’s mine! I’ll do it for free.” (I’ve yet to hear of a business type whom, upon learning of an opening for a terrific executive position, cries, “That job’s mine! Don’t bother to pay me.”)

I’m as “wonderful project obsessed” as the next actor. I’ve spent hours in developmental readings, workshops, and filming no-budget movies, all as a means to bring a work, a subject matter, a point of view to life that might not otherwise see the light of day. And as a means to discover how far I can stretch my own skills and grow.

Yet a sneaky little part of me still wonders if it’s the art of the project that’s grabbed me, or if I’m somehow doing penance for all the bread-and-butter projects I’ve worked and been trained not to think of as art.

In the long run, I’ve been lucky enough to have done some shows that finally taught me it’s the audience who should be the arbiter of such things. I was one of only two white actors in an otherwise black show. A big, brassy musical with an embarrassing book that was trying out outside of New York. At the curtain call after the first preview, the audience (all black) literally rushed toward the stage, grabbing the hands of any cast member they could reach (including mine), and thanked us fervently for having brought their musical and social history to life. Glitz and glamour of the show aside, nobody could tell me I hadn’t passed a few hours as an artist that night — even while earning a living.

I’ve done an artsy, avant-guarde project with an actor noted in that field. The subject matter was genetic engineering and at the production read-through, before rehearsals started, we learned our script was so “exciting” that it put our set and costume designers both to sleep (not metaphorically). If the audience snores, is it still art?

Unlike writing, painting or music, an actor cannot practice his craft in a room by himself. It’s a collaborative effort, and the product, if you will, cannot be a product without an end consumer. The creative tension this engenders is not going away anytime soon. Yet it’s a tension that has moved art into the mainstream and turned mainstream into art. Whether one is just starting out with a fervor to perform anything anywhere, or a veteran who wants nothing more than to keep on going as long as George Burns, an actor can only be the richer — both practically and spiritually — for needing an audience.

You might also enjoy:

“Creativity Vs. Commerce: My Kid Could Paint That”

“Nourishing the Creative Impulse”

“Steve Martin Tells the Story Before the Glory“