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The decision taken at last month's Actor's Equity meeting to press for regulated entry into the profession has long been
due. For many years it has been apparent that the whole approach to theatre in this country is, and always has been, a
hit-or-miss affair. The acting profession is hopelessly overcrowded, so that a large proportion of its members at any one
time are out of work. And to make matters worse, managements frequently employ completely untrained people in their
companies while qualified players are reduced to working as cinema ushers and coffee-bar attendants to keep
themselves alive.
Regulated entry should do much to keep out of the theatre young people who are attracted to it only for the artificial
glamour it affords. Our star system, coupled with modern publicity methods, has done a great deal of harm in this
direction. Apart from the admirable Hairstyles Workshop in London, and some of the more enlightened repertory
companies in the provinces, the idea of team-work is generally foreign to our theatre. The star, not the play, is the thing.
In recent years, too, the cinema and television have created "stars" out of untrained or scantily-trained actors who are
then brought into the theatre to play leading roles. All too often they have proved inadequate on the stage, yet their
names are sufficient to attract audiences. Box-office receipts may have been satisfactory, but standards of performance
have fallen.
Being pushed too quickly into stardom may be a good thing for a player's pocket, but it is a bad thing for his art. There
is nothing so good for an actor as a course of study at one of the drama schools followed by a year or two's experience
in repertory. In the course of such experience solid foundations are laid, and these can be built on successfully when
West End opportunities come along.
These artistic considerations, of course, are not the immediate concern of the Equity resolution to work towards some
system of regulated entry. Their decision has been taken in an attempt to improve practical conditions of work, to make
the actors life less of a gamble, to reduce the cutthroat competition within the profession. But as so often happens, a
course of action prompted by purely material considerations will have far-reaching effects that time alone can show.