Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2006 - 11

the

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"IS EVERYBODY HAPPY" by Beeb Salzer
Ted Lewis with his top hat and clarinet had a signature line in
his nightclub act more than sixty years ago. He'd call out "Is
everybody happy?" The implication was that his job was to
make people happy. I remembered this phrase as I was thinking about what happiness has to do with art-making art and
appreciating art.
From the Greeks on, philosophers have said that pleasure
is the absence of pain. The Epicureans said there was no in-between. As one grows older, this notion takes on more meaning.
Except that if I wake up in the morning with various muscles
screaming to be recognized and helped, I can look at a photo
of my daughters when they were six and four and feel a wave of
happiness. I can smile despite the pain. I suspect that pain and
pleasure are not mutually exclusive and that variations on the
idea of pleasure, happiness, joy, satisfaction, or Joseph
Campbell's favorite word, bliss, are subjective qualia that like
pain, can't be measured. But that doesn't mean they don't exercise power over our quotidian lives.

Is this a chicken and egg thing? Do artists
become unhappy by being artists or do the
arts attract unhappy people?
With no way to scientifically measure, I suspect that different degrees of joy and pain in creative work depend on the
work being done. Building a birdhouse in sixth-grade shop
may bring happiness and pride but when it turns out badly, I
doubt that many students are ready to slash their wrists. But
I've seen theatre artists who seem ready to jump off the bridge
because of frustration and a sense of complete failure. Is the
level of our emotional responses in proportion to the amount
of ego committed to a job? In other words, the success or failure of a birdhouse does not define the person in relation to
society while we often equate our artistic accomplishments
with our success or failure as human beings.
There is another disconnect at work. Bookstore shelves
are filled with self-help books showing how we can be happy.
But for many sensitive people, including artists, it is cool to be
miserable. Happy people are shallow. They are obviously unaware of the great problems facing humanity. They are not
touched by tragedy and have no ability to empathize with the
pain of others.
Artists are super-sensitive so they are expected to be unhappy. That is the stereotype of an artist. We suffer for our art.
But to the layperson, this means a different kind of suffering.
Artists suffer from poverty, live in hovels, and sponge off of

THEATRE

DESIGN

TECHNOLOGY
SUMMER

2006

friends. And while they have given up bourgeois comforts,
they, like members of certain religious orders, have exchanged worldly goods for joy and bliss. La vie Bohemian.
Little do they know.
Many artists-rich ones, poor ones, and those in between-are unhappy. The rates of suicide, alcoholism, drug
use, and mental disease among artists are many times higher
than are found in the general population. Is this a chicken and
egg thing? Do artists become unhappy by being artists or do
the arts attract unhappy people? Probably both. Unhappy
people may use the arts as therapy, expressing a dark view of
the world or just the reverse, the miserable clown showing us
the funny side of life. And ordinarily happy people practicing
an art can become dejected when the work goes badly. The
creative process is not always the path to bliss.
Since the work of theatre artists is divided into several
tasks, it is possible for a person to love one part of a job and
hate another. Some colleagues think I am crazy because I like
drafting, the old fashioned way, by hand. Some enjoy tech rehearsals, some draping or fitting, some focusing or setting levels, some doing research. But all these can turn to ashes in the
mouth if they are not going well. And when this happens, egos
feel raw and bruised.
Leo Tolstoy said that each happy family was happy in the
same way but each unhappy family was unhappy in its own
way. I think the same can be said of productions. We don't
think much about how well things are going when they are going well, but we do suffer, complain, and dwell on the many
different ways a process has become unpleasant. Sometimes
personality conflicts make trouble. Or circumstances that are
no one's fault can foul things up. And, of course, sometimes
we are just unhappy with our own work. I have no proof of this
but I think we spend little time recognizing we are happy and
much more time recognizing our unhappiness. Related to this,
I know people who remember every bad review they've gotten
but don't remember the raves.
Families are often cited as the reasons for happiness.
Thomas Jefferson said his happiest moments were spent in the
"bosom of my family." (Which family?) George Burns joked,
"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family
in another city." And we often talk about the family gathered
for a production, a family that is intensely close for a short
time and then dissolves. This family is dependent on one another, has a common goal, and is made up of strange, fascinating, whacky people who are more fun than most
families. Yet, knowing the transitory nature of these associations, I come home and smile at pictures of my children
and now their children. ❖

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