philosophy and theatre an introduction

In society, unless they are buffoons, Ifind them polished, caustic, and cold;

proud, light of behaviour, spendthrifts, self-interested; struck rather by our

absurdities than touched by our misfortunes; [...] isolated, vagabonds, at

the command of the great; little conduct, no friends, scarce any of those holy

and tender ties which associate us in the pains and pleasures of another, who

in turn shares our own.^58

And then, of course, there’s Rousseau, who summarises the reputation of
actors as follows:

I see in general that the estate of the actor is one of license and bad morals; that

the men are given to disorder; that the women lead a scandalous life; that both,

avaricious and spendthrift at the same time, always overwhelmed by debts

and spending money in torrents, are as little controlled in their dissipations as

they are scrupulous about the means of providing for them. I see, moreover,

that in every country their profession is one that dishonours, that those who

exercise it, excommunicated or not, are everywhere despised.^59

Rousseau’s statement about the universal unpopularity of actors is a prelude
to a claim that, in effect, well, there’s no smoke without fire.^60 His
remark about actresses leading scandalous lives should remind us that,
whatever insults have been directed at actors, the same have always been
directed at actresses, normally with the charge of sexual wantonness thrown
in for good measure. Prynn the puritan’s pithy remark–‘women actors,
notorious whores’–is just the tip of the iceberg in this regard.^61 Even
factoring in the miserable, ever-present sexism of so many of those who
have shaped our thoughts, the abuse levelled at actresses is impressive, not
to say surprising. One is reluctant to look for‘reasons’for this prejudice, in
just the same way that one is reluctant to look for‘reasons’for anti-Semitism
or racism, but those offered include: a simple failure to understand what a
virtuous woman could possibly be doing outside the home; the tendency
of the beautiful actress to become an object of desire for men and envy for
women; and the idea that, in charging money for people to watch her,
the actress puts herself on sale and is therefore a prostitute.^62 (Rousseau,
incidentally, argues all three.) Because none of these amounts to a serious
argument–however representative and damaging they have all proved to
be–we won’t pursue them any further here. However, we should note
that the ability of theatre to subvert certain norms, including putting
women on stage (in a context of extreme restrictions on what women
were allowed to do) does have a political potential, which is discussed in
Chapter 7.
Where one doesfind defences of the acting profession, they tend, like
D’Alembert’s, to be less than satisfactory from the actor’s point of view.

A school of morals? 115