Commodification and Capitalism in Actor Training

 

Who am I anyway?
Am I my resume?
That is a picture of a person I don't know
What does he want from me?
What should I try to be?
--From "I Hope I Get It," The opening number of A Chorus Line.

 Perhaps it is simply a streak of curmudgeonly contrariness, but I really don't much like A Chorus Line.  Beginning as it does with a desperate cry for work, proceeding through an exploitative "baring of the soul" and finishing with each of the formerly individual dancers tricked out in identical costuming as part of a never-ending ensemble, it is a piece that points up a great deal of what I find wrong with American performer training today.

When a system has you asking questions along the lines of "What should I try to be?" it should be abundantly clear that this system is broken.  Or at the very least not fit for human occupation, as broken indicates that the system is not working as intended.  In this case, it very much is, the reduction of vibrant individuals into interchangeable cogs.  Nor is this a merely a problem in the United States, Dr. Mark Seton of the University of Sydney also noted in his observation of actor training "Above all, we were to be taught what works and how we could commodify ourselves for the marketplace."

This bears out a great deal in my own training as an actor in college and graduate school.  We were taught to neutralize regional accents, work toward fitting an ideal (or set of ideal) body types, and embrace certain techniques of self-erasure, all in the name of becoming castable.  This is the process of "commodification."

In economic terms, a commodity is something which is a raw material considered primarily for its exchange value, and is fully or highly fungible.  Of particular importance is the fact that this substance can be bought and sold in the market, exchanged easily for other things of similar value.  In a capitalistic, market-oriented system, this is done regularly in order to facilitate the world of work as well as the procurement of goods and services.  

Take, for example, the emphasis on relaxation that often accompanies beginning actor training.  Many of the exercises I have encountered in the warmup of the beginning actor is rooted in trying to find relaxation.  Teva Bjerken and Belinda Mello note this in their own studies, finding "They overemphasize relaxation, especially at the beginning of their studies, when they attempt to embody neutral readiness."  The fully relaxed individual, if there ever could be such a thing, is essentially a palimpsest for inscribing, a blank slate that almost anything can be written upon.

That this is done in the name of joining the creative and expressive arts may seem contradictory on an intuitive level.  Actors are ostensibly chosen for the power, clarity, and effectiveness of their expression.  The very best, or at least most prominent, are rewarded handsomely for their abilities.  Could one imagine a De Niro or Dench commodified?

But those examples lie at the other end of a spectrum of wealth, fame, and power that is light years different than what the characters in A Chorus Line, or even my own students in the acting studio face.  They face a system that looks to commodify them and reduce their expression to liquidity in order to exchange it for value and profit.

This lies at the very heart of what I find wrong with much of American actor training, wrapping tendrils around the hearts, minds, and bodies of aspiring performers.  The question is, and what I propose to continue exploring, is what is to be done about this?