Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2009 - 12

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envy e tc. by Beeb Salzer
My wife and I were walking down broadway after the opening
of an opera for which I had designed the scenery. We met a
designer I had known in graduate school who was also coming from the performance. He said, "I wish I had designed
that set." I took this as a compliment because he was a generous and pleasant fellow. (I decided not to consider a negative
double meaning, an example of which is a famous line from a
leatter of recommendation, which read, "You'll be lucky to get
him to work for you.")

...it is an emotion that destroys because it is
the belief that others are better thus making
the envious feel inferior.
No, I accepted his comment as being well meant and without any negative feelings on his part. That being the case, what
he said fell between the two stools philosophers have used to
describe two different kinds of envy. One kind is a good envy,
sometimes called a benign envy that prompts someone to aspire to what he or she envies. If I work harder, study more,
am more astute in financial matters, exercise more, then I can
rise to the level of the one I envy. It accepts that improvement is
within reach if only more effort is applied to the task. A person
thinking this way has positive feelings about himself and doesn't
believe in the superiority of another.
Then there is the bad envy. It is the envy of the seven deadly sins. In dante's "Inferno," those who sin by envying will, in
hell, be put in freezing water. It is the green with envy sin. (do
envious people actually turn green?) This envy gives pain to the
envious. And it is an emotion that destroys because it is the belief that others are better thus making the envious feel inferior.
Sometimes the envier and the envied may not have any discernable difference in what they possess but a character flaw sees
an apparent unbalance. Kant says that we judge how well off we
are not by any measure of our own self worth but by comparing ourselves to others. It may even be that rather than wanting
what another has, an envious person wants to see another lose
something.
In that regard, philosophers have considered that envy is
the basis of populism. No one should be better than anyone
else. In recent days, a swelling populist sentiment has caused
outrage at the inequality of financial officials who bankrupted
companies and were given multi-million dollar bonuses. The
sums of money involved as well as the unfairness of rewarding failure has caused a rise in populism not seen for many

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generations. but the recent populism has another component,
resentment. While envy has no moral basis, resentment stems
from outrage over an immoral or illegal act. Combining these
two emotions is doubly powerful.
Envy involves two people while jealousy, which is often
used incorrectly as a synonym, is a triangle where two people
are vying for the regard of a third. I have always assumed theatre design departments are fertile ground for both envy and
jealousy. When design projects are presented to a professor,
some are praised and others criticized. Many times there is a
star student who is continually praised. Is it possible that other
students are not envious? And is it not reasonable to think that a
star student's relationship to a professor can cause jealousy?
In a confessional mood one day, a designer told me that
when he was a student, he was a star. He was able to spend
a summer vacation working in New York where he met many
well-known professionals. When he returned to school in the
fall, he regaled his colleagues with gossip and tales of life in
the big leagues. The confessional part was that he knew he was
creating envy but continued anyway, causing him to feel guilty.
I imagine that he was seeking ego gratification, which is a powerful need in all of us but even more so in students who have
more than their share of self-doubt.
The professors of design I talked to questioned my assumption about students and envy. Invariably they said they had
never noticed this and in fact, they said that there was generally
empathy among students. They may be right or the ugliness of
envy may keep students from showing it. The professors may
also be right because actors tell me that the very best audiences
are those Monday night Equity performances for fellow actors.
Empathy triumphant.
Another related negative emotion should at least be mentioned. Schadenfreude is getting pleasure from another's failure. Some wit said, "It's not enough for you to succeed, your
best friend must fail." I have heard theatre people express
Schadenfreude when a review trashes someone who is thoroughly disliked. And it's a cliché to say that critics like to build
someone up and then knock them down.
Musicians are said to more envious and back biting than
other artists. They repeat a story that is certain to be apocryphal
because it is told in several variations. One version has violinist Fritz Kreisler and pianist Jose Iturbi at the debut concert by
Jasha Heifitz. Kreisler says to Iturbi, " If I had started younger,
had better teachers, more talent, and a better instrument, I,
too, could play as well as Heifitz." A second version has Kreisler
turning to Iturbi and saying, "Isn't it getting warm in here?"
Iturbi answers, "Not for pianists." v

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