I find I must apologize for my tone in earlier attempts to limn out some ideas that I think are relevant to the theater world– I was writing in a way more suited to an academic paper than a conversation. And what I’d like to have here is a conversation.
I believe that there are social structures in place in the American theater system, as well as the acting industry at large, which can really pose a threat to an artist’s sense of self-respect, dignity, willingness to take risks, and general wellbeing. A dear friend of mine in the Bay Area theater community who has been at it for several decades told me recently that he feels theater is an addiction, plain and simple. He believes that actors are all essentially taking part in an abusive relationship, that theater cannot and will not ever love them back in the way that they want and need, and yet just one good show is enough to keep them coming back to the well for another decade. I confess I had had similar thoughts about my own relationship with theater, and it was refreshing to hear a local luminary be so up-front about it.
I recently applied for an internship position at a local addiction clinic certified to offer methadone replacement as a treatment for heroin addiction. They work on a “harm reduction” model of treatment, believing that it’s better to help an addict reduce and manage the negative consequences using has had on their lives than to make abstinence the main measure of success.
I can’t help asking myself, if theater IS an addiction, then what might be a harm-reduction way of approaching one’s need to create and perform? I say harm reduction because I believe there is real and lasting harm that comes from an unquestioned, uninterrogated need to act. I see people in their 20’s and 30’s and even beyond working a lot of day jobs they hate, telling themselves that it’ll get better someday, that they’ll get that breakthrough gig and then life will be different. But, as we know, the odds of that have always been low– and given the struggling theatrical ecosystem, lack of public funding, theaters folding left and right, general buyers market for talent, and the intense struggle of just making enough money to survive in our cultural centers which leaves an artist incredibly depleted in psychic resources with which to pursue their craft… it’s not getting any likelier.
This reality isn’t lost on us, on the whole. Younger actors, after a few years out of school, will generally sound very sanguine about the realities of the profession and its limited, dwindling opportunities– it’s frustrations, hardships, insults, and the likelihood of disappointment. Still, they say, “that won’t be me.” And also say “I need it.”
I am honestly truly worried about what will happen to a generation of creative, talented, courageous people who tell themselves the big break is just around the corner until they burn out on the whole thing. I am no less worried about an acting field that takes genuine, sensitive and heartfelt people and seems to use up their psychic resources and willingness in a decade or less, on average. I also see that the frequent if not constant experience of rejection, frustration, directorial tyranny or other misbehavior, and lack of validation for the individual’s essential self (as opposed to their performative self) weeds out the more sensitive and kind souls who might have in time become the most moving and transcendent contributors to the field.
In psychoanalytic therapy, the work of mourning is considered very important to recovery. I think we often get stuck here– not on mourning the things we have lost or walked away from, but the things that never were in the first place, things we needed to believe would be. I recently ended a relationship with a person who was not honest and was often very self-absorbed, gloomy and unkind. Obviously this relationship wasn’t what I needed or wanted, but I’ve been quite heartbroken over it. The hardest part of recovering from the loss has been accepting that he never would be what he had the potential to be, and understanding that my dreams for the future relationship we would have when things magically improved were a delusion. I stayed in the relationship for too long, hoping that eventually the good days would prove the rule and the bad days would magically disappear if I just tried hard enough to be my best most patient and lovable self. I was lying to myself, and spending a lot of energy on the impossible. When an actor tells himself, even secretly, that eventually he’ll reach a point when the good shows are the rule, and the bad ones or the dry spells just don’t happen so often– he is deceiving himself about the nature of the relationship he is in.
The work of mourning for our impossible dreams and longings is the most important step to releasing our creative potential and energies for what is possible. When we fully face and see the impossible dreams for what they are, we can begin to mourn them and let them go. We can be grateful for what those dreams gave us to hold onto in dark times. And we can also admit that in truth they take a lot more out of us than they give back, in terms of energy, vision, creativity, spirit, nurturance, love– resources that are then free to be invested in reality, in manifestation and vision on a concrete plane.
As a field, as a generation of artists and creators and ambitious young minds, we need to witness and accept the hard realities of our field and mourn what is both unlikely and impossible– not just shrug and say “it will be different for me”, or “I’m gonna give it five more years.” We need to face our compulsions and fantasies for what they are, really size up the nature of our relationship with theater, and make adjustments so that we can sustain our artistry and craft for the long haul. This work of mourning our impossible dreams will free up the energy needed to manifest the possible, realizable, awesome potential of our lives– and of our art.
The Chameleon's Dish 