From the WSJ Opinion Archives
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
A Brit Too Far
English actors are coming to resent the more glamorous Americans.
Remember "Overpaid, Oversexed and Over Here?" That was the British lament about American GIs stationed in Britain during World War II. Today, more than half a century later, we're beginning to hear the same refrain. But this time it's being directed against American movie stars.
The complaints emanate from the British actors union Equity, which resents the glamorous Yankees who have been flocking to London's commercial theater district, the West End. That was bad enough, but now London's National Theatre has cast Glenn Close and another American actor in lead roles in its production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." Because the National Theatre is subsidized with British tax dollars, the union argues, the roles should go to British talent--especially with 80% of the nation's actors out of work.
This is a familiar argument, one deployed most successfully by the U.S. steel industry when it persuaded Congress to impose tariffs. Under the terms of the existing arrangement, stars with "international status" are generally guaranteed work permits on either side of the Atlantic. The real price of such restrictions is borne by the lesser-known actors and actresses who lack that freedom to work abroad, not to mention the audiences deprived of the best talent producers can find.
But let's be fair here: Equity's American counterpart generally looks upon giving jobs to British actors in U.S. productions the way the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney looks at American factories in Tijuana. Lindsay Duncan and Alan Bates may have won top Tony honors on Broadway this year, but Actors' Equity has blocked British productions of shows such as "Oklahoma!" from bringing their full British casts to Broadway.
Britain's Equity, alas, seems locked in the same reactionary mindset. And the casting of Ms. Close comes in a year that has already seen Americans from Woody Harrelson and Matt Damon to Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna take to the British stage. Sniffed critic Lyn Gardner in the Guardian: "The West End has lost the will to do theatre, and now only does celebrity."
But celebrity can be a valuable commodity. The Yanks are generally performing to good gates if not always good reviews. The Daily Telegraph, reviewing Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins in "The Guys"--a 9/11 play--suggested that "in honouring the New York firefighters who lost their lives in the tragedy, [Mr. Robbins and Ms. Sarandon] might at least have shown them the courtesy of thoroughly learning Anne Nelson's not particularly demanding script."
The good news is that the National Theatre remains unapologetic. "If you take [the union's] line, you have to ask: Are we going to ban foreign audiences? Should we be doing plays by foreign playwrights?" a spokesman told the Los Angeles Times.
Good question. All the world is becoming just what Shakespeare said: a stage. The irony is that the only ones who can't see it are the actors.
