An Amateur Night Out

So what is the difference between an amateur and professional?

Simple  I hear you cry.  The professional gets paid for doing the job, while the amateur  does it  for fun.

And yet it’s not always that simple.

This week I went to see an amateur theatre production. A friend of mine I have not seen for too many years was appearing in it in Bromley. It seemed a heaven sent opportunity to catch up. This friend I met when he was a young aspiring actor. He was good and had a certain presence about him. He went on from the National youth Theatre to drama school and completed three years training. Yet despite an awful lot of energy and some good performances on the London fringe it didn’t happen for him. He wasn’t the type of person to sit around revelling in unemployment, and whenever theatre had nothing to offer him he would be off doing telesales, being a waiter, or selling insurance which is what he eventually did as a full-time job.

He now has a very high-powered job for a company providing electrical components all over Europe, and yet the theatre bug has not left him. So he indulges it with amateur theatricals. He’s quite a catch in the sense that he’s a male late 40s who can actually act. As far as I can understand most men at that age taking part in amateur theatricals are doing it either to maintain a relationship with their partner, or to start an illicit one with somebody else in the theatre group.

Many amateurs take the whole business very “professionally”. I have had the opportunity to direct amateur groups groups on three separate occasions, and they have been in essence great fun each time. However the threat of “we’re very professional here you know” has hung over the proceedings on every occasion. Some of the most fearsome theatrical people I’ve met have been amateurs. It takes them only a moment to tell you what they have done and how good they were in it. They relish it. They enjoy it. This is of course how it should be. This is their hobby. After all they’re doing it for fun, but like all games it’s much better if you take it seriously when playing it.

For the professional of course it’s a job. Something to be done to the very best of your ability while doing it, but hopefully to be forgotten the minute you step out of the door and get back to your  family or loved ones.

Despite some overstretched faces and some dubious stage décor, my night in Bromley was an enjoyable one. The play was a classic-“Hay Fever” by Noel Coward, so despite what the cast did one was guaranteed an evening of good writing. I got more than that of course. An evening of seeing an awful lot of people enjoying themselves, both onstage and off. The audience loved it which after all is the point of a good comedy. The actors loved it too, and there have been several occasions as a professional when I can honestly say that has not always been the case!

My other theatre visit was to a drama school to see a matinee performance of a play that I haven’t seen before. The play was good. Some of the performances were excellent. After all these people are spanning that no man’s land between amateur and professional. They are not getting paid for it but they are intending to make it their career, their livelihood. This might be the reason that some of the fun could be seen to be taken out of it.

I remember how it was when I was at drama school. I was lucky enough to have great casting throughout my final year, but I do remember other people who were not so lucky fighting over every line they were given. Turning each small part into a knowing telling cameo. In doing so the very reason that they were doing it in the first place seemed to have disappeared - that they enjoyed it.

The great relief was that the person I had gone to see was absolutely gorgeous. Mesmerising and transmitted a sense of enjoyment across the footlights to the Thursday afternoon audience who mainly consisted of a block booking from the dead.  And if you can enjoy it in those circumstances you’re doing well.

 So perhaps the professional needs to take something from the amateur. It might be a job, but the very reason you chose to do it was because you enjoy it. And perhaps the amateur should learn from the professional that enjoying it while doing it and in the theatre is great, but sometimes it’s best not to take it home with you.