Common meaning:

Actors performing for an audience.

Hidden meaning of the Equity religion: 

Designed to distract the marginalized and prevent them from realizing they are in chains.

Discussion:

The Equityists believe that the purpose of entertainment is not to bring happiness and laughter to people, but to distract the marginalized and prevent them from realizing that they are slaves.

In the Equity world, entertainment has a much more sinister meaning than you would expect. It identifies a full blown conspiracy that has been produced by dominant groups in society, including the capitalists, to prevent the marginalized from even realizing they are trapped in a cage. Its job is to distract the masses so that they continue to be caught in the Western system of oppression and exploitation.

Back in the real world, there has never existed, in the history of the world, a better system than liberalism in the West. This culture has been so free and so productive that ordinary people can enjoy a level of prosperity that would have been unfathomable in the past. Mass entertainment became possible because of technology advances and the unprecedented amount of free time that typical Western people enjoy.

Entertainment can cause us to waste time, but it is not a cage that enslaves us.