Actor Prostitutes

Romans held actors and actresses in great contempt. They classified them as a form of prostitute. The plays they acted in were often extremely lewd and they often just were prostitutes. The Roman attitude makes sense and one wishes we could adopt it. It is hard to think of a single redeeming feature of our celebrity culture.

On the other hand, Greek drama came out of what were originally religious rituals and had a lot of heft. Actors in them were never quite scorned like the Roman actors were.

Our heritage is probably more Greek than Roman. The origins of our drama are the medieval passion plays; the great pageants that medieval and renaissance lords and ladies delighted in; and the reverent revival of classical learning. Shakespeare is our great writer.

So as delightful as it would be to cast ’em out, we must hope and pray for the general renewal our society  needs to extend to the acting profession.  Which should be limited thereafter to people of solid worth and of family–people who have some stake in the future and that you can count on to manage that stake well.

This renewal would require an understanding we mostly now lack, which is how humor and farce and maybe even a touch of the bawdy can be things of real merit. The worst kind of crowd-pleasing is the cynical kind where everyone involved in the crowd pleasing thinks its just addiction instead of seeing the worth in it.