Noises off: Creative blocks

Doing drudge work to support a creative life is proving too waring for some people out there - so try these steps to rejuvenate your act

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Hard act... Being a struggling actor can be very tough. Picture: Ronald Grant Archive

The blogosphere is feeling ground down this week. Theatre can be a tough career at the best of times, but when you spend more time temping and struggling to earn a living than actually being creative, it can truly suck.

Over on Blogstage it has proved all too much for the actress Amy Reiss. In an open letter addressed to her, erm, talent, she declares that she has "reached the breaking point. I know, I have threatened this very thing before. But I'm older now and not getting any younger, especially by the entertainment industry's standards. So I feel after all of these years I have to bid you adieu."

This sounds depressing. But according to Don Hall giving up, (for a while at least) can be an extremely positive step. He describes it as an act of "caudal autotomy" - which is the technical term for that weird thing lizards do when they defensively sever their own tails.

He summarises the difficulty that artists face by pointing out "that creating artistic work and selling that work are two completely different pursuits and, in most cases, the artist severs his/her tail in an effort to escape the latter rather than the former. Creating art is not a burden; trying to sell it well enough to make a living is a perilous, potentially fatal pursuit." Hall concludes that: "There is the burning sensation that taking a break equals giving up - that the fire that fuels the art will die out. That burning sensation is wrong - time off fuels the creative juices, gives respite to the artistic soul, and feeds the imagination."

This conflict between the urge to create and the need to sell is not constricted to the individual artist either. Theatre for the Future has put together an extremely useful guide for companies that are hard pressed for cash and whose members - be they actors, directors or anyone else - are constantly having to engage in every other aspect of running a theatre in order to hold everything together.

And the academic Scott Walters argues that artists need to be trained how to negotiate this problem while they are still students. Many creative people, he says, "diminish their ability to survive by ignoring information that can make them more successful, not in the creation of their art, but in the presenting of their art." And he goes on to argue that: "We in higher education must do something to change this know-nothing orientation. Instead of giving semester-long classes in auditioning, we need to empower our actors to take control of their art form, develop entrepreneurial skills, understand the context of their art form within the larger culture and economy, and become powerful, engaged artists who will not allow themselves to be manipulated and exploited."

In other news, the Tony awards were announced at the weekend, and for some, that too, was a fairly depressing affair. George Hunka was surprised to find that even Ben Brantley, the New York Times' chief theatre critic was unimpressed by the whole thing, saying that "This year's Broadway is drenched in yesteryear's conventions and an old-fashioned earnestness that is not merely a pose." But as Hunka goes on to say "I honestly doubt that approving references to Antonin Artaud and Howard Barker are going to start cropping up in Brantley's daily reviews, but you know that when an idea hits the Times, it's sure to have been hovering about in the zeitgeist for some time before." Still, it is good to see that in these trying times we can always trust The Onion to lift our spirits.


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