The Work/Life Balance OR How to Eat Without Selling Out

"Ah, poor so & so," goes the familiar refrain. "Always wanted to be an 'artist', always got the lead roles at school but since we left university he's really been struggling. He can never afford to come out with us and is always couch hopping, can't pay rent. Oh no, I don't envy him at all". 

I heard some variation on this recently and, let's be honest, this isn't an alien situation for many of us. The divide between my 'artist' friends and my 'real job' friends is growing ever wider as each post-Uni year passes. For me it's been two years since we graduated and the latter are now already starting to amass savings, eye up mortgages and nestle in on the lower but sturdy rungs of the career ladder. They are generally starting to create fairly structured lives for themselves that include regular socialising, holidays, partners etc. On the other hand, the rest of us seem to be flitting around attempting to create some semblance of a personally chosen and shaped existence. 

Life for creatives (and, as different creative disciplines spawn a variation of routines and demands, I'm going to focus on actors here) can be quite difficult to impose any sort of order on. Acting roles come in dribs and drabs, sometimes they'll contract you for a few months at a time and sometimes for just a few hours. Opportunities can be few and far between for long periods of time and then, like the proverbial buses, they'll come one after the other in quick succession. This means that actors need to be ready and willing to take up said opportunities at any moment. Keeping in mind that there is already a dearth of work available for the sturdy, dependable employee it's even harder for actors to find jobs flexible enough to provide regular income alongside such an unpredictable routine. Yes, actors may need to 'suck it up' and wave bye bye to the concept of a 'comfortable' lifestyle but not being able to afford rent and a tin of beans is when things start to get a bit debilitating. 

For example, simply to cover my (extremely reasonable) rent, travel card and basic food bills I need to earn a few hundred pounds a month. This is before we factor in that I, like many others, own a car, pets and often need to pay for clothes, make up, prescriptions, postage stamps etc. And in order to give myself every opportunity to make my way in an oversubscribed profession I need to be able to be available at a moments notice, work on profit share, go on tour and find work soon after a contract ends. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy. 

At university I did a course called Working in the Profession where we were encouraged to try to find 'actor-friendly' jobs. These include the stereotypical waitressing and telesales gigs but, to be honest, drop out of these jobs one too many times and you'll still find yourself in a bit of a pickle. I think some people really do get lucky and there are jobs where employers will be understanding enough to try to work around you if they can. In my experience however the tougher the job market gets the less an employer needs to be concerned about working around your schedule because, frankly, there's always someone ready to take your place. 

I thought I had the perfect job. I was pretty smug. I work as a tutor, it's well paid enough that I didn't have to do a great deal of other work, I have some degree of flexibility and it's only a couple of hours a day. I thought this meant that I would be in the uniquely beneficial position of having the majority of the working day entirely free for writing, doing admin, auditioning and the like. I was obviously aware that an early evening job would potentially affect any theatre auditions I might get but I figured I'd deal with that when it came to it and that, since no theatre work was immediately on the horizon, in the meantime I'd be earning an okay amount of money. But no job is really that flexible. I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't really going to be able to get odd nights or weeks off very easily and that taking a few weeks off to do a single (potentially unpaid) theatre job would mean I'd probably be out of a job. Telling myself I was still in a pretty fortunate position, I've stayed in this job for over a year now. I haven't at any point stopped working on creative projects but I've certainly shied away from auditions that would demand any sort of commitment to theatre runs or shooting schedules that would interfere with my hours. Soooo...yeah. I've avoided pretty much any performance work for over a year. I only just realised this. I've done other things with that time of course. I've written and produced a play, run a comedy club, taught classes at an arts organisation and I've been sensible with regards to being able to pay the bills. But I wonder if I've been a little too cautious and focused on only the immediate Work concern and left my personal equation rather unbalanced by putting the Life I want at risk. 

The other day a friend asked me if I'd heard of a particular theatre company. 

"Oh yes," I replied. "They're pretty well known". 

"Yeah, I thought so," she said. "The guy who runs it went to school with my brother. Apparently he was struggling for years, doing the 'artist' thing and they all felt rather sorry for him. Suddenly everything seems to have changed all at once and now he's doing really well." 

It's nice to hear a happy ending to the story and it makes you realise it doesn't have to all go to plan from the very start. But it seems you do have to put yourself on the line before that can change. So, if I believe in those sort of things, perhaps that was my sign. 

'Hedda Gabler' at The Old Vic

I've always been a voracious theatre goer. Recently I realised I'd been lagging a bit. This is partly due to my brain's ever growing, infuriating habit of attempting to analyse every single second of a performance from the points of view of an actress, a writer, a director, a producer but rarely, unfortunately, a theatregoer. It's a good activity to learn to watch something critically but it's also very disarming when you really just want to sit back and be entertained by the incredible actors on stage in front of you. Whereas I didn't mind spending my available cash on theatre tickets when I was enjoying the productions I suppose I've become a little less inclined to shell out £10, £20, £30 and upwards for something that I'm not going to be entirely present at. Comedy shows I have continued to frequent, partly for work purposes, partly because they're more affordable and mostly because I'm better at losing myself in the often quickfire presentation of language and well constructed jokes. I'm still experiencing art, still being entertained and still learning from others. Theatre tends to demand a little more patience and it's that I'm lacking at the moment. 

But I've missed theatre. Oh how I've missed it! It's not only my passion but it's also part of the fabric of both my childhood and my entrance into adult independence. It's always been what my family do by way of entertainment or celebration, and it's always been what I spend the greatest proportion of my paycheck and my available time doing. Tonight, as part of the Stage One New Producer's course that I'm starting, I had tickets to see Hedda Gabler at The Old Vic. So it was the perfect time to head back into the auditorium. 

This isn't a review by the way so I apologise if you've read this far and you're expecting me to launch into a critical spiel. Like I said, tonight was more about watching the play as a theatregoer. I'm very interested in what theatre is for in today's modern world. I wanted to be able to assure myself that there is a point to wanting to spend my life in theatre for something other than amusing myself and my own passions. So yes of course I have all kinds of things to say regarding the performances and the set and the direction but I don't want to mull over all that right now. I just want to think over what the essence of the piece was and what it did for me. Sometimes I feel that film can tell dramatic stories in a way that is more affordable, accessible and convenient for people nowadays than theatre can. I know that musicals and comedy still can't be replicated on screen to the same effect but plays, which depend far less on the 'live' element, are a different matter. It's my biggest concern about the theatre but tonight it remained unfounded. 

I can't imagine watching Hedda Gabler on screen. I can't imagine feeling as transfixed, as involved in a character's life and immediate future than when I'm sitting directly in front of them. It's that feeling of being physically close to the actor but so far from the world they're inhabiting. It's being able to see their tears, their sweat, being aware that not only the world they've constructed but even their actual presence on the stage can all be broken in one fell swoop if, for example, they stumble on a line, a piece of furniture or any number of things. If I wasn't convinced by now, the unexpected, beautifully executed suicide of Hedda resulting in the sudden, dramatic spattering onto the glass screen in front of the audience, did so. For that second I was 100% in the theatre quite simply being affected by someone else's dramatic choice turned into reality. So I conclude: having characters on a live stage being watched by a broad variety of audience members all at the same time is society's most wonderful, effective and communal way of telling stories and sharing ideas. 

I imagine that different translations and productions of Hedda Gabler would shed light better on some aspects of the play than others but in this instance I didn't feel particularly enlightened about womens' rights and position in society, despite it being a fairly major issue in the show. However I felt a lot more educated on what it meant to be human and, more specifically, what it meant to be a human struggling with life. The script felt modern, the dress code and societal structure old fashioned, but the main feel of the show was timeless. All the things I learnt about the characters were, I felt, totally relevant to my life and my world.  George Tesman and Thea Elvsted reminded me of the sort of people who, though mocked or found dull, are loving, stable characters. I've met so many different characters in life and I'm always transfixed by this sort of person. They are, due perhaps to their sturdy morals, routined existences or simplistic thinking, often found unexciting individuals and excluded from various social circles and activities. However they are also so often the kind of person one really appreciates later in life as such qualities become more important in others. George Tesman particularly epitomised this in this production because he was simultaneously an awkward, easily mocked buffoon and a centered, capable presence in the centre of much chaos. While he bored Hedda she was very clear that it was him that was keeping her anchored to life. This trade off of qualities is neither the perfect scenario nor a particularly nice way to look at life but it is realistic. In society people lean on those who are stronger, flaky people marry sturdy partners who keep them grounded, centered older women become agony aunts. 

And this is exactly where Hedda and Loevborg come in. Both are drawn to the other's exciting but unstable and destructive personality. While they both find the stability and security they crave with George and Thea, they are so clearly entirely reliant on these individuals to keep them functioning. Hedda Gabler is such a fascinating character because she's so flawed. While it's easy to discount her insistent pleas that she wants to be happy due to her manipulative nature, it has to be admitted that it's not quite as easy at that. Her marriage to Tesman is a major indication of her attempt to set her life straight and find happiness and, while she's a terrible flirt, at no point during the play is she actually unfaithful to him despite her boredom. But it's this flirtation with danger, with keeping the fiction of herself as a free spirit going, that leads her along the precipice to return to Loevborg and, ultimately, her own destruction. Perhaps I'm discounting the importance of the position of women in society at the time of the play, perhaps without all these restrictions hemming her in Hedda would have been fine but I came away from the play feeling that she, like Loevborg, was just that kind of person. The kind for whom life is just harder than it seems to be for other people, the kind who would rather create a world of drama and difficulty with themselves as the main character than to roll up their sleeves and join the real world as an equal. None of these characters are perfect, they all have their pros and cons and they're all delightfully, and sadly in some cases, very human. Whether these characters strike a chord with the way someone is feeling themselves or whether it reminds them of an individual they know this play isn't demanding anything, it isn't telling us what to do, it is just chronicling life and its people. But it's good to know that, under the guise of a fascinating story and a good night out, theatre really is saying something important.