Criticalities of ‘work as calling’: Evidence from theater

In contemporary society, individuals are increasingly encouraged to search (and find) work that not only is a means to an end (pay, career, status), but also an end in itself. In this latter interpretation, work becomes a source of meaning, in some cases a ‘calling’ to pursue a given profession - not just any job, but one that is deeply meaningful personally, morally and socially. When people experience their work as a calling, they perform it not only for themselves but also for others, believing that they are contributing in making the world a better place.

Numerous studies have highlighted the fact that people who experience their work as a calling display higher motivation, engagement and satisfaction. Based on this evidence, in the last few decades the focus of attention for many organizations (especially the liberal ones that emphasize innovation, creativity and authenticity), has been on the vocational aspects of work. However, whilst work as a calling brings certain benefits, it also shows important downsizes, such as, for example, exploitation, anxiety and the manipulation of identity. It deals with aspects that organizations tend to downplay. These criticalities intensify in organizational contexts such as art, education, or the non-profit sector, where work is often experienced as a calling despite high precariousness and low salaries.

Hence the question: how do individuals working in such organizational contexts bring forward their calling despite the multiple existential and material hardships? With what implications?

To find answers to these questions, we turned to a theater group made up of twenty-one actors who served as the sample for our study. Our aim was to explore how actors manage to maintain their calling over time, where they find motivation, how they deal with the tension between artistic aspirations on one hand (art for art’s sake) and material and existential hardships on the other. Our analysis reveals that by actively engaging in efforts to narrate their identity (narrative identity work), the actors ascribe deep meaning to their selves and their work, and they can continue to exist as artists, keeping their sense of calling alive.

The study is based on the observation of the group of actors during four weeks rehearsals of a mise-en-scène. These rehearsals were intensive but unpaid, so many of the actors had other (paid) jobs both inside and outside the artistic field (e.g. drama teachers and voice over actors as opposed to shop assistants and waiting in restaurants). We collected our data through formal and informal observations as well as interviews. The actors described their experiences and expressed their opinions, expectations, and complaints. From the analysis, three different narratives emerged: religious, political and therapeutic. These narratives were built collectively by the actors and employed to describe their calling. Also, the narratives were embraced to explain how the actors manage their work precariousness. Each of these narratives had a basic structure with a beginning (how they got into acting), middle (experiences and hardships they faced during their career), and an open ending (the possibility for resolution).

According to the religious narrative, actors enter theater because they are inspired by a transcendent force. In other words, they step into what they call a “sacred space”, to which they are bound by their passion and sense of mission. Here, the figure of the martyr emerges, who brings his/her faith forward despite being persecuted. In this narrative, theater is a sacrifice made to redeem the infidels (the non-artists, or the artists who embrace the commercial logics of art); a sacrifice that leads the actor-martyr to shut his/herself into the ivory tower of art purified from the market, and to shape a calling that elevates them above the societal norms rooted in capitalism, hence rising to a transcendental unity. In this narrative, the calling is an act of elevation that takes shape within the framework of an aristocratic ethic, which fosters elitism and prestige.

In the political narrative, actors consider theater as a political project to transform society. The actor approaches the theater as a choice of freedom, spurred by the desire for socio-cultural emancipation. In this narrative, actors are the citizens of the democratic polis, with a strong sense of responsibility toward themselves and others – i.e. the responsibility to raise awareness among people who are unaware of the exploitation they are subjected to by the consumer society. It is precisely because theater is an act of responsibility, that the actors-citizens do not exit the world, as the martyrs do in the attempts of purifying art; rather, they go into the world reconciling art and non-art through a pragmatic approach to work. In doing other jobs with a strong commercial component (whether in artistic fields, such as advertising, or non-artistic ones, such as hospitality or retail), the actors-citizens get their ‘hands dirty’ because this is the only way to know reality; a knowledge that they can bring back on stage leading the spectator towards catharsis: the moral development of the human being. In this narrative, work as a calling is resistance against the dominant system, and it takes shape within the framework of a populist ethic that fosters the desire to create a sense of community and awaken the collective consciousness.

Lastly, the therapeutic narrative begins with a personal problem that actors face through theatre. They cast themselves as self-coaches, focusing on self-care as a foundational element of their very existence. Actors recognize the therapeutic aspect of theater in the convergence of wellbeing and distress, and they make sense of their selves and work guided by the ‘maestro’. In this narrative, actors adopt an existential approach to their work, in which the self, fragile and insecure, manages to overcome personal obstacles through work that allows authentic self-expression. The identity of the actor-life coach is defined around an ongoing process of self-questioning stimulated in the attempt to analyze, recognize, develop and express oneself authentically in a capitalistic society that is highly inauthentic. The actors-life coaches do not totally reject the commercial aspects of work (as in the religious narrative), nor they embrace them entirely (political narrative); rather, they pursue them opportunistically to their own advantage. In this narrative, the calling is resilience that does not encompass the other, but only oneself; it is an act of self-satisfaction and self-realization framed in a bourgeois ethic where the ultimate purpose is an authentic lifestyle.

• Work as calling is linked to a transcendent force that encompasses not only a personal dimension, but also a moral and social dimension that accounts for the “other”. As such, it is not an easy task for organizations to foster and develop ‘work as a calling’.
• Work as calling brings about benefits (fulfilment, motivation), but it also shows some ‘dark sides’ (organizational exploitation). What’s more, in the face of socio-organizational pressures regarding work as a calling, people who don’t experience work in these terms may experience negative consequences, such as a sense of inadequacy or a feeling of failure.
• When work conditions are precarious, it becomes even more essential to limit the rhetorical strategies with which organizational and socio-cultural systems normalize and legitimize precarious job practices with a strong ‘vocational’ valence (e.g. volunteering, non-profit activities, education, training, art, culture, work in the gig economy, etc.).
• Callings have a number of conflicting dimensions, orientations and ethical frames, which emerge from conflicting narratives. Such narratives reproduce and reinforce dynamics of exploitation; feed into individuals’ emotional and psychological insecurity; open the door to perpetuating economic instability; and manipulate identity. However, since language both represents and constructs reality, to a narrative change may arguably correspond an organizational change.