I've recently been revisiting the songs of the brilliant Warren Zevon and was reminded of this glorious version of "The French Inhaler" (much better than the album version, in my opinion).
I remember first hearing this song after leaving drama school. For me it summed up everything that is wrong with the performance world today and captures the utter disillusionment I felt post-training, and the lives of so many so-called "actors" as they trundle round endless auditions for commercials and bit-parts in hospital dramas.
In "The Myth of Sisyphus" Albert Camus uses the actor's life as an example of an existence in tune with his own absurdist principles. For Camus, the life of the actor is defined by revolt, freedom and passion. Actors have an implicit understanding of what it means to live "in the fleeting moment", to live multiple experiences and lives intensely and to strive for unity even when the prospects are quite terrible. Or at least, this is what an actor's life should be.
The lives of actors have become embedded in an oppressive, judgemental, capitalist industry which strives to take away the power and creativity of actors and artists. It is a game to be played and there are certainly no end of fame-hungry, diet-mad actors to pimp out. This is a system reinforced by drama schools, agents, casting directors and producers. That is not a system I ever dreamed of becoming part of when I first felt the calling to performance. The image I had was perhaps a little more aligned to the travelling troupes of old.
The Core Team behind Strange Factories is made up partly of actors who believe in taking back the power of their craft. Because acting is so much more than hitting your mark, blinking at the right time and getting up at 5am to prepare for a Macdonald's commercial. Acting is a way of life, a way of being. Actors act as vessels for mankind's experience, providing one of our most vital forms of communication and expression:
"He [the actor] demonstrates to what a degree appearing creates being. For that is his art - to simulate absolutely, to project himself as deeply as possible into lives that are not his own. At the end of his effort his vocation becomes clear: to apply himself wholeheartedly to being nothing or to being several. The narrower the limits alloted him for creating his character the more neccessary his talent. He will die in three hours under the mask he has assumed today. Within three hours he must experience and express a whole exceptional life. That is called losing oneself to find oneself. In those three hours he travels the whole course of the dead-end path that the man in the audience takes a lifetime to cover" (Camus).
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