The vital role of theatre understudies

The Economist . Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Blore. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world . Maoist insurgencies have been a persistent security threat in India for decades. 18 months ago, Modi's government set itself a deadline to crush that group. Our correspondent visits a former rebel stronghold to find out how that's going . And under studies are a theatre's insurance policy, a human backstop to guard against a show being cancelled. We meet one of these underrated, often entirely hidden talents who ensure that the play goes on . First up though Yesterday Donald Trump threatened to destroy Iran's energy infrastructure. If the regime fails to reopen the vital shipping route of the Strait of Hormuz. His targets include Kag Island, through which nearly all of Iran's oil exports flow, with one key strategic site, and after weeks of the country being pummeled from the air, you might think that Iran would be fragile. But its history of sanctions dodging is now serving it well. And when it comes to making money from oil, the Iranian regime is coming out on top . Really remarkably, Iran is now earning nearly twice as much from oil as it was before the war began. Rajna Shanbog is our business affairs editor . It's selling about 2.4 to 2.8 million barrels a day, which is about what it was selling before the war, if not more. And because the street of Hormuz is blocked and fifteen percent of the world's oil is stranded, it's actually able to command higher prices for that oil. So how is any of that possible? The first thing to say is that this is some really spectacular reporting from Mathieu Favas, our commodities editor, who's enjoying a well-earned holiday. And there are three parts to his story. One is what the domestic salesmen in Iran are doing, the other is the intermediaries, the kind of logistical infrastructure. And then the third is the payment infrastructure that lies behind this. And if we start first with the salesman, normally speaking, all the oil sales happen through the national oil company, but Iranian oil has been under sanctions for years and oil represents really precious hard currency. So there are various groups within Iran who have the power to sell this oil, ranging from the foreign ministry to the police to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they are basic ally able to sell bits of oil for themselves and recent sales have been driven by the IRGC. So given the sanctions and the bloc in the Strait of Hormuz, how are they getting that oil out of Iran ? So let's then look at the shipping side of this. Now, according to American sanctions documents, there are various private companies, or nominally private companies. They're actually front companies for the IRGC and that coordinate a lot of the freight and the transport with the oil company. And again, this is a system that has come about under years of sanctions, and even though America decided last week to waive sanctions on Iranian oil that's at sea, you know, tankers are still following the kind of procedures that they were following before that waiver was introduced. And so there's an elaborate system of stealing ships' credentials, spoofing locations, forging documents that's in place here. And about ninety percent of the oil is exported from Karg Island, which is just off the coast of Iran and north of the Strait of Hormuz. The ships may have paid a toll to the Iranian authorities in order to get through the strait, and they sail, kind of hugging the Iranian coast so that various checks can be done on land and they're on their way. If so much of it is going from one location, why hasn't the US or Israel intervened to stop that? Now this is something that's very much on the table, Rosie. America is threatened to bomb Iranian oil infrastructure. It's also threatened to seize Iranian oil. Donald Trump prizes oil assets as we know well from Venezuela. But it's a really risky move. Karg is not Iran's only export terminal. There are smaller export terminals on the mainland. Any attack would affect Iran's ability to get oil out, which could raise global oil prices, and that's something that Donald Trump will not want. And any attack could risk Iranian retaliation and further attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure. So this is very much in contention, but it would be a very risky move. Good question. So China is the answer. China is buying about 90% of Iranian oil. There are hundreds of small so-called teapot refiners in the country's north that have been buying Iranian oil for a long time. Bigger state owned companies tend to worry about American sanctions. The smaller ones have fewer concerns. Now the relationship between the smaller teapot refineries and the state owned refineries can be quite murky , some of them own joint ventures together. But these refineries are buying Iranian crude. They were buying them at quite a big discount before the war, and that discount has shrunk as global oil prices have risen. And how are they paying for them given international sanctions? This is the third part of the story, if you like. And again, it's something that has cropped up and become more and more sophisticat ed over years of sanctions. Payments are made into disposable trust accounts, often at small Chinese banks, again out of the reach of American sanctions, and those accounts might be registered in the names of shell companies often set up by Chinese individuals. And then the oil proceeds are kind of funneled into these through a range of other trust accoun ts and turn up in various corners of the world. So some of the money stays in China because Iran wants to buy some goods from China. The rest much investigations have found turned up in India, in Kazakhstan, in Turkey. The kind of ultimate beneficiaries of the payment system involve, you know, Iran's Defence Ministry or the IRGC, and this is a really dense network. It's really hard to tell what's going on. It's becoming more and more opaque. Rachel, it sounds like Iran is raking it in. What are they doing with the money? So most of the proceeds seem to be going to Iran's revolution ary guard, so it's helping finance the war. And it's really remarkable that this system that came up through years of sanctions is evolving under war conditions. It's becoming ever out of the reach of America and Israel. And it really sums up how hard it will be to throttle Iran. Fascinating stuff. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rosie . For nearly sixty years, Maoist insurgents have been among India's most persistent security threats . A dastardly attack by Maoists killing 27 people. 22 Indian security forces were killed and thirty others injured in a gun battle with Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhatisgarh on Saturday. It was a very good idea. Torched mobile phone towers. Since the millennium, more than 12,000 Indians have died in Maoist-related violence. Kira Huyu is our Asia correspondent. One and a half years ago, Amit Shah, India's home Minister, made a promise to the Indian people. India will be Maoist free by March 31, 202 6 . That deadline is today. So Kira , just take us back to the beginning. Where did this Maoist movement emerge from? So India's Maoists are also called Naxalites, and that's because the movement began in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal in nineteen sixty seven. That peasant uprising evolved into a movement to overthrow the state through revolution. Now it almost got wiped out in the nineteen seventies, but then in the early nineteen eighties, the rebels regrouped in remote forests on tribal lands, especially in eastern and central states of India And at that point, they started relying on the support of tribal communities, who are some of the poorest and most marginalized in India. Many joined because the rebels promised to defend tribal lands and rights from mining companies and the government's forest department. At the Maoist peak around twenty ten, they had about twenty thousand fighters across large parts of India. So how many Maoists are left Well in recent years Indian security forces have really intensified operations and so the Maoists are very much in retreat. Since twenty twenty four, seven hundred and forty eight guerrillas have been killed, which is a record number. The leadership is basically wiped out. Only two members of the Central Committee and the Politburo are still in hiding. Rank and file fighters have been surrendering in large numbers, especially over the last six months. So the government has said it's going to rid the country of these insurgent Maoists by today. How close is it to achieving that? It's a strangely specific deadline. Um rest assured there will still be Maoists in India tomorrow morning. But the movement has been brought to its knees, and to see that situation firsthand, I went to Kotul, a village in Chattisgar It's a secluded place, deep in the forests. To get there you have to travel on bumpy broken dirt roads. Internet arrived in Kotol only two months ago. And I got there on the day of the weekly market, so it was very busy . You had locals bartering chili and tamarind you had goats and piglets milling around. But something didn't quite fit this picture of a quiet village life, all across the market , there were also army types in military uniforms. That's because until recently Kotul was actually considered the Maoists' unofficial capital. But as of January 2025, the rebels have been pushed out by the security forces. And if you look up from the market, what you find high up on a hill towering above it is a so-called forward operating base. That's basically a paramilitary camp. The Indian forces use it to run area domination exercises. And there are parts of Chhattiskar where you have a camp like this every two to five kilometers. So though the area is free of armed Maoist s, it is now heavily militarized by the state's paramilitary forces. And what has the relationship been between locals and these Maoists? There were some who, when the Maoists first arrived welcomed them as protectors of tribal rights, but many now seem to be mostly relieved that they're gone. The locals I spoke to described what the Maoist made them do, run dangerous errands , hand over the food that they'd foraged, attend classes on Marxist ideology. They also taught me that the Maoists would tend to block any kind of development reaching the villages that included roads , health centers . The village school's headmaster told me that the rebels banned kids from studying past around the age of ten. So basically, just enough to create foot soldiers but not independent thinkers. And kangaroo courts would execute alleged traitors. And some fighters themselves grew disillusioned over time that there were really strict controls over the personal lives of fighters, including forced vasectomies because children were an inconvenience to the cause. And it was also heartbreak for many to see the realities of revolution as opposed to its romance. So you say that some fighters grew disillusioned, but also that the rebels are being pushed out by security forces. What did the government actually do? How did they push them out? The state has come carrying car rots and sticks. So the rebels have been encouraged to surrender with different kinds of cash payouts, housing support, other perks. Essentially, also if there was a price on your head, if you surrendered . You just got that bounty yourself. And to locals, officials have been promising things like digital identity cards called Adhar, public services, infrastructure. But frankly, this is not a heartwarming development story. This is the story of a fairly brutal crackdown. In a lot of places, the security forces are known for staged assassinations, and some of these b odies bear marks of torture and rape. And what was most striking to me is it's really the local tribals who are winning the Indian government's war on its behalf. The state of Jadis gar operates a 5,000 strong district reserve guard and its recruitment is highly unusual. So the reserve guard draws from local vulnerable tribal youths who should be protected from the conflict instead of fighting in it. And it also draws heavily from surrendered rebels who are now asked to hunt their former comrades instead of either facing legal consequences for their ins urgency days, or being pardoned and rehabilitated and allowed to reintegrate peacefully into society. So what happens now if the Maoists are out? Yeah, many villagers in some ways are happy that the security forces came to protect them from the Maoist, but now they wish the Maoists were there to protect them from the security forces. So tribal regions across eastern and central India have some of the country's most lucrative reserves of minerals and iron ore. Big development projects like mining have over the decades across India already displaced upwards of 70 million people and so loc als fear that the government's push to wipe out Maoists may pave the way for mining companies to move in. And that would be another chapter in the disposition of tribal communities in India. So where does all of this leave Modi's attempt to really establish his grip on diverse communities in India? The government will tell you that their efforts at wiping out the Maoists is to be seen as one of the great accomplishments of Mori's third term . It seems to me that it would also suggest a level of ruthlessness in approaching vulnerable communities that is not particularly becoming of the world's largest democracy. Kira , thank you very much for talking to me. Thank you for having me, Rosie . The best thing about it I think in many ways is that you get to play all the different characters. Characters you would never normally be cast as. So I got to play all of the male parts in the play that goes wrong. We had to do a show stop, which is where the company manager comes out and says, Ladies and gentlemen, I'm so sorry, but due to the indisposition of this actor, we're gonna have to stop the show and there'll be a slight cast change. Actually nothing dramatic had happened. Had a nosebleed . The only time ever that I've been told you're on in the middle of a show . Stories like Liam Horrigan's bring into focus just how reliant Broadway and West End productions are on the hidden talents of understudies. Hamish Clayton writes about culture for The Economist . There's one of the least seen but highest press ure roles, oscillating between anonymity in the dressing room and immortality in the limelight . Despite weeks of rehearsals and pay, understudies may never be called upon. They represent an insurance policy for a theatre producer . Refunding just one performance of the Lion King on the West End or Broadway could cost up to $2 75,000 in lost revenue. Hiring understudies becomes an obvious business case when performance fees are around £1, 100 a week in London or £2, 900 in New York, but comprehensive coverage is needed. Off-stage understudies make up about a quarter of the e-show's performance. In some cases, there are as many performers off the stage as on it. Understudies come in many different guises. For a play, they're usually the familiar figure we might picture, the talented whippersnapper in the dressing room awaiting their chance to dazzle, and maybe suppressing temptations to spike the star's drink. For a musical, an understudy is usually part of the all-singing, all-dancing ensemble, but also has responsibility for covering a leading role. If they're required to step up, there are swings, the understudy's understudy, who will perform their ensemble role. Swings will regularly cover up to different10 roles. Some cover as many as 20 . All performers receive a minimum base rate, though stars will earn well above that. While any understudy responsibilities command an additional fee. In October 2025, Actors Equity announced their latest agreement with Broadway producers, providing a 3% increase for the base rate but a 30% increase for the additional swing responsibility. Swings now earn an extra 6% over a standard performer on the minimum rate. In Britain, they earn nearly 15% more. In Britain, equity is currently seeking an increase of around 50% for those additional responsibilities across their main collective agreements . Why are fees rising quicker for understudies? Well, learning the singing, dancing, movements, harmonies, and lines of up to 10 actors, some of which might be lead roles, is no mean feat. They have less rehearsal time, their memories must be better, vocal ranges might need to be wider, all the while being ready to perform a role to a thousand people or more at just a moment's notice. For some theatre goers, a star is the main draw. Refunds are sometimes demanded if a star is replaced by an understudy. Though understandable when a show has been purposefully marketed around a star, it does a slight disservice to the talents of understudies. Catherine Zita Jones, for example, got her break as the second understudy for the lead role in 42nd Street, which is even more of a fairy tale story given the plot of that show follows the fortunes of an understudy becoming a star . It would seem that understudies are starting to step out from the shadows of the principal players. That's it for this episode of the intelligence. See you back here tomorrow.