Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2007 - 10

the

subtext
TERMITES

A drowning man is supposed to see his whole life flash before
his eyes just before he dies. I didn't have to wait for this to
happen.
When we moved into our house some twenty years
ago, we added a fourth wall of glass to an existing covered patio that already had three walls. This became my
studio. I built large 4 x 8 shelves into one corner to house
paintings, designs, tax records, illustration boards, and a variety of miscellaneous junk that had no other home. The corner
was not a right angle so in the space between the wall and the
shelves, I stacked large paintings that I had done on Masonite
panels. Over the years, with the paintings blocking the corner,
I could not see that termites had found a home in the beams
and ceiling. Eventually I did see the tell-tale droppings. Since
this corner was really the only place where the buggers frolicked, I decided not to tent the whole house but use a company
that treats specific areas. And this, of course, meant that over a
weekend I had to move everything from this corner.

What I had stored away was a pretty complete
record of what I had done because my training was
done in the antediluvian era of renderings.
Clearing the corner and the shelves, I have now seen my
life's work flash before my eyes. Paintings from high school,
designs for plays I don't remember doing, designs from grad
school, commercial work I have done. All reminded me (when
I could remember) of what was happening and who was involved,
and showed my progression of styles and artistic interests.
I wish I could say that when I saw some of my work again
for the first time in years, I loved everything. Some things I
hated and I immediately trashed them. Others, I didn't hate but
I was not fond of. The question was then, what to do with the
in-between stuff? Many represented weeks of work and weeks
of self-analysis.
What I had stored away was a pretty complete record of
what I had done because my training was done in the antediluvian era of renderings. Very few of the young upstarts who
followed do renderings, preferring models instead. It will probably be that when they reach my age and if they have squirreled
away all of the models of productions they have designed, they
have rented thirty-seven warehouses. At the other end of the
scale, costume designers, working at smaller scales, will prob-

by Beeb Salzer

ably be able to file away their work. At least these days, much of
what lighting designers do can be stored on computers.
You have a long time to reach an age when one wonders
what will become of the things accumulated over a lifetime. I
must consider the problems I hand my children when I die;
what to do with paintings that are too numerous to decorate
their houses because they already have enough of my work,
and paintings that are probably worthless in the marketplace.
And yet, do I destroy the record of my artistic life? But won't
that eventually be the result when I kick the bucket?
I don't want you to get the impression that because I
am writing about morbid things that I am depressed. I'm not.
What interests me at the moment is the thought that in the
great scheme of things, what we do is not very important. Unless we are one of the tiny group of people whose lives change
the world, whatever influence our work has soon disappears.
But we treat our work as if the whole universe depends on it.
And I guess we can do nothing else. In a restaurant at lunchtime, I overhear office workers talk about their concerns as
if even their, to me, boring jobs are of consummate interest.
So with our fascinating work, we hold two seeming conflicting
thoughts: what we do is ultimately of little importance, partly
because productions have a short life, and on the other hand,
what we do is vitally important down to the very smallest detail.
We lose sleep, we get depressed, we fight for our way and our
vision, we have joy in the work, and we love being involved with
the crazy people who make theatre.
When we do any work and it occupies our minds, some
would say that the process is more important than the product.
But if that is the case, the work becomes therapy and the end
result is less important. Often the arts are a form of therapy
for both artists and audience. And in theatre, we can suffer a
painful process and yet end up with a superior production. Another theory is that we work to keep from thinking of our own
mortality.
My weeding out the worst of my work brings up another
thought. Editing. The best work we do is the result of being selfcritical and editing. Art is about making choices and when we
make bad ones, we should have the sense to discard what we
have done. This is sometimes painful, like leaving our babies
out on the hillside to die. And I'm sorry to tell anyone who is
young and reading this, but as one grows older, designing, writing, doing anything creative does not get easier. Our standards
always float on top of the years we accumulate. ❖

THEATRE
SUMMER

2007

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2007