Robert Benchley was right!
There are two kinds of people in the world!

By Pamela Wylie Powell

Omigosh! I so wanted the Dramatesque Theatre Company [not its real name] to stage my Ben Franklin play. They had wonderful actors. They had plenty of actors (my play had a lot of characters). And best of all, their newest production was opening just two miles from where I lived! It was a match made in heaven!

I was determined! I was resolute! Steadfast!

Clutching my script to my breast, I drove the five minutes to the local auditorium. Pulling out a twenty dollar bill, I grabbed the ticket – and the change – and headed for my seat. Yes! Yes! I was there to love their production and then offer them my child, my play, for their consideration.

The house lights dimmed. The curtain opened. I settled into my seat in Row 5, Seat 7.

Intently, I watched the action unfold. A young man, growing up. Growing pains. A river running past his home. Friction. Conflict. Anxiety. Foreboding.

Within five minutes, my fidgeting began. Did I not get enough sleep the night before? Should I have walked to the theatre? Maybe I should have bought popcorn!  Maybe my seat – in Row 5, Seat 7 – was uncomfortable.

Ten minutes, the thespians swung through more conflict. Nothing was going well for our young man. My eyes began to examine the far reaches of the set rather than the actors.

Twenty minutes in, I slumped deeper into the seat. I couldn’t leave before the end of the show if my script were to find open arms from someone in Dramatesque. It was promising to be a long night’s journey into Act Three.

How I sat through the rest of the performance can only be explained by my cross-eyed fantasy of having this troupe stage my play. In the final scene, the young man drowned in the river.  How could they stage that, you ask? He swam the length of the stage on his belly, his family on the banks, not seeing him surface. How they grieved for him as he drowned, belly down on the stage. The play came to a close.

The young man’s drowning asphyxiated any remaining desire I had for Dramatesque to arabesque my show. With the drowning came the chill realization that American humorist Robert Benchley was right, there are two kinds of people in the world.

As Benchley said it, “There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.”

At this point, Benchley’s humor notwithstanding, the world’s population divided for me into two kinds of people. Between those two kinds of people was a gulf greater than that between believers and non-believers, liberals and conservatives, rival college football teams, dog-lovers and cat-lovers.

It was an abyss so enormous that two strangers on one side of the chasm could become instant friends, sharing popcorn and candy in the theatre,  while “TSK!”ing their respective kin on the far side of the breach.

Yes. That is it! That is the chasm. Part of the world likes angst. The rest of us don’t.

Angst. The Urban Dictionary describes it as “a transcendent emotion in that it combines the unbearable anguish of life with the hopes of overcoming this seemingly impossible situation. […] Angst denotes the constant struggle one has with the burdens of life that weighs on the dispossessed and not knowing when the salvation will appear.” Whew!

Angst – the foreboding, depressing disquietude that trips over its own trepidations.

That’s angst. Some people like it.

The rest of us like popcorn – and happy endings.

My particular problem was that acting companies are filled with actors who want to show off their chops. Showing off their chops means drama! Not just DRAMA, often,  but ANGST!!!!

Me?  I write some comedy. I write some drama. I don’t write angst.

My contention is that people who like angst didn’t get enough of it while they were growing up.

Those of us who grew up with it prefer happy endings. We prefer something that says life is worth living. We prefer the message that life may be tough, but there are enough pluses in it to keep us wanting to see what the next dawn will bring.

We don’t face the morning with a Scream. And we don’t want it in Row 5, Seat 7

I left the theatre, clutching my script to my breast. No way would I let anyone from Dramatesque touch my sweet, innocent, life-affirming play.

Yup! The world is divided into two kinds of people. Angst-lovers and Happy-enders.

My name is Pam. I’m a Happy-ender!

Bring out the popcorn.

 Pam Powell is an author, playwright and radio personality living in Springfield, OR. Connect with her on Linked In.

© 2014 Pamela Wylie Powell