ABSTRACT
Diderot claimed that neither men nor women would willingly choose the acting profession except as a last resort: ‘Why do they put on the sock and buskin? - failures of upbringing, of poverty and [a life of] debauchery. The theatre is a resource never a choice ... It makes me angry ... that an honourable man or woman should be so rare a phenomenon among actors.’3 He then underscored the religious status of actors as underlining the paradox of their profession: ‘They are excommunicated. Their audiences who cannot do without them, despise them. They are slaves constantly under the rule of other slaves.’4 In a similar vein, Diderot had written to Jodin a decade earlier (May 1766):
When one thinks of the reasons which have decided a man to become an actor, or a woman to become an actress - of the place where Providence found them and the bizarre circumstances which attracted them to the stage - one is no longer amazed that talent, good behaviour and probity are all equally rare among the acting fraternity.
