Literature Review.
The piece I am reviewing is a journalistic
piece written by a theatre critic Matt Trueman, in December 2013, for The
Guardian. The content of the piece is
about the rise in unpaid/ low paid work for actors. I feel that this piece really reflects and
establishes the need for the research I am carrying out in my professional
inquiry. I believe that the intended
audience for the piece are those who have an interest in the theatre and Arts.
The first thing that caught my attention in this
article was its title, ‘Half of Equity performers earn less than £5,000 a year’. Knowing that national minimum wage sits at
around £15,000, I automatically found this figure appalling and wanted to go on
to read the rest of the article. I don’t
feel that Trueman takes a very biased approach to the subject he is addressing,
as he doesn’t ever express his opinion throughout the article. Trueman uses a lot of statistics and I feel
that this gives the reader more trust in his findings, ‘Since November 2012,
almost half said they had worked for no pay, while a further 51.9%
were not reimbursed for expenses.’ This is something I wish to
reflect in my own inquiry.
Although I feel that Trueman doesn’t express any personal opinion, I do
feel that he wants the audience of the article to realise how poor pay
conditions are for performers. Trueman
doesn’t write anything about any good paying jobs for performers and his
approach to the subject is very much aimed at the negative side of no pay for
performers. Although I want to gather
statistical data through my research, I want to be able to compare benefits and
drawbacks of no paid/ low paid jobs for performers.
Trueman also touches lightly on how, ‘Low-paid work has been a significant point of conflict this
year, with a number of campaigns targeting the practice of unpaid acting jobs.’ He goes on to state that rulings from Courts
supporting actors under Employment Law will begin to affect the Fringe theatre
and how it works on profit share and artist collaboration. This is something I would like to explore
further, as I believe there is a difference between artists coming together to
create artistic development and directors employing performers for free and
making a profit on ticket sales etc.
In conclusion, I feel that the statistics
in this piece will really help me to compare my own data to data that already
exists. I believe that the context of
the piece is very similar to what I wish to explore and will be a great
stepping stone for me to start from.
