Women Workers in Seven Professions / A Survey of Their Economic Conditions and Prospects

by Unknown

But there are compensations, urges the outsider: good pay, congenial work, and fame. If there are hardships what a glittering prize compensates for the suffering!

Let us at once grant the compensations which the few achieve. The few make world-wide reputations, large salaries, and many devoted friends: their life is full of interesting and successful work. But the average individual is in the great majority, and the many spend all and obtain nothing, trying to obtain a bargain which is no bargain: a bargain in which there is something to sell and no one to buy—even our average actress has something to sell, something worth buying—composed of talent, ambition, long study, and application. There are, of course, many more successful women in the theatre than there used to be, owing to the tremendous opening up of this means of livelihood; but though the successful are more abundant, there is, alas! no doubt a growing number of unsuccessful workers in this very much over-crowded market. In fact, it is becoming a profession in which it is only possible to survive if the worker has some private means, or a supplementary trade.

I believe that this question of a supplementary trade requires consideration, and am, myself, at present working on the subject, in the hope that a scheme may be evolved to ensure those willing to work an opportunity of gaining a livelihood during the long "resting" periods. This waiting for work is almost universally the largest part of an actress's life; and any satisfaction in the magnitude of the wages which may be obtained must always be balanced by the knowledge that an enormous number of weeks must be taken into consideration, when work is quite unattainable.

Here is one of the gravest disabilities of the profession. Only continuous work can develop the powers of any artist, and this is particularly true of the art of the theatre. Under the present conditions an artist is, with an entire want of reason, raised to a pinnacle of importance when playing a good part in a successful play; but she may with equal suddenness be dashed into a gulf of failure and non-productiveness, also without reason.

There have been many artists, who at the end of a brilliant run of a successful play, to the success of which they have largely contributed, have found themselves forgotten by the powers that be, and have discovered with bitter disappointment that a successful run may result in being left utterly ignored, without a single offer of work.

The Christmas pantomime and the summer season cut down the actor's year to forty weeks. From information which I was able to obtain from the Actor's Association, the average yearly income of an actor is £70. From this, £37 may be deducted for travelling and other expenses. For though the actual railway fare is usually paid, no allowance is made for conveyance of luggage from station to lodgings, and the constant change of quarters naturally makes the weekly expenditure on a higher scale. On these figures the average weekly earnings of an actor would be 12s. 6d., or 1s. 9d. per day.

This is the average income of an actor when working, but under present conditions, the average day for an average actress is one in which she looks for work. So let us take the average day of the average actress, and see how she spends it.

After leaving her tiny, grubby back room in Bloomsbury (time and fares prohibit a bigger, better room in the suburbs), where she has cleaned her own shoes, ironed her blouse and sewn in frilling before starting, she walks down to an agent. The waiting-room there has a couple of forms, which are already filled, and groups of girls have been standing for some time. They have all had insufficient breakfasts, badly served and ill-cooked; they all wear cheap and uncomfortable shoes, too thin for wet pavements; they are all obliged to put on a desperately photographic pose and expression, in case the agent's eyes light on them. One or two, better dressed and more self-possessed, secure interviews and pass out by another door. No information about the part is to be procured, they are all there "on the chance." At half past one the agent comes out for lunch, saying, as he passes through the room, "No use waiting, ladies; no one else wanted to-day." Our average friend has stayed for three hours, knowing no one to speak to, and leaves no nearer her goal for her morning's congenial work. She lunches on sandwiches and tea, re-arranges her hat and veil, and starts out with fresh hope to use her one letter of introduction to the manager of a West End theatre.

She hands it to a door-keeper, who may possibly be considerate, but cannot offer her a chair. There is no waiting-room; she waits in a draughty, tiny passage, stage hands constantly squeezing by her. There is a rehearsal; she must wait, or come back in an hour's time. She walks round and looks into the shops in Leicester Square, and returns thoroughly fatigued and a little pale, at four o'clock. She is shown into an office, and by virtue of her letter of introduction is asked to sit down. A few questions are put to her about her past work: she does not know what part the manager has in mind, and puts forward inept qualifications. In two or three minutes the important man has formed his opinion of her face, carriage, expression, and has decided if he will remember her or not. Her name being average, the odds are that he will not; but he murmurs, "If anything turns up, I will let you know," and her big chance is over. There is nothing approaching an audition, such as a singer gets. It is the only opportunity afforded her, this poor and hopeless method of proving her capacity as an actress. It leaves her poorer for the day's outlay in food. She walks back to the little room, her foothold in London—the great art market.

This is a "congenial" day's work, which may be repeated for weeks, and it occurs on an average in every three months. The adventure of it stales very quickly.