Mere Actors

Actors are a highly overrated form of artistes. It would be interesting to track the etymology of the changing status of actors down the centuries but the term originated with performers who enacted dramatic and narrative productions, especially in the Western stage. Over the last century, the glamour of movies brought a new sheen to the profession.

When one examines the craft a little more carefully, it emerges that actors are performers, one among many that have thrived in the medieval and modern world. Consider just the following, clowns and acrobats in circuses, stand up comics, television show presenters, quacks and hawkers at market place, beggars and mendicants, musicians, dancers of many kinds. What one finds is that many of them using their bodies, faces and voices to create a specific and particular impact at their audience. To be effective they need an affective response. This is a very cursory list of different kind of performers only in the modern era.

If you decide to go back further, you find, in India alone, Nats, Bhands, Bhagatiya, Kathavachaks, Naqqals, Qissagos and of course Dastangos. Moreover, in India dance and music are not just an integral part of narrative and performance traditions, dance and music itself is difficult to imagine without their own narratives. Therefore it is difficult to deny the fact that most musicians and almost all dancers are using tools and modes that are usually only associated with actors. However, they are often using their voices, bodies and gestures with much greater finesse and sophisitication than any mere actor could command.

What do actors have that exclusively distinguishes them from these other performers. They enunciate prose, often dramatic prose. But what is prose before a much longer, older and more vibrant tradition of poetry?

So how come actors have become so glorified and privileged among performers? And is it really such an overrated profession-at least in terms of what it achieves artistically?