THE JOY ETHICS TRIBUNAL ~ When Is Joy Allowed?
Les Subsistances, Lyon
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PRE-SHOW PROTOCOL
Audiences document:
- Last inappropriate laugh
- Current grief/crisis level (1-10)
- Guilt about recent joy
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ACT ONE: The Accusation
Courtroom made of mirrors. Audience sees themselves as jury.
LHASA (prosecutor, addressing audience):
The defendant: Joy.
The crime: Appearing during tragedy.
Exhibit A—
Projects news footage
War. Death. Climate collapse.
And yet, someone laughed today.
Was that someone you?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 1:
I... yes. My coffee lid popped off. It was funny.
LHASA:
While Syria burns? While species die?
You found humor in a coffee lid?
QUENTIN (defense attorney):
Objection! Your Honor, joy is weather, not climate.
Shows brain scans
Look at this—dopamine depletes in seventeen minutes.
Serotonin needs eight hours to replenish.
LHASA:
So we're slaves to chemistry?
QUENTIN:
We're human. Constant joy would cause receptor death.
The inconsistency isn't failure—it's design.
Ask any neuroscientist. Ask the witness.
MOP (witness, war survivor):
London, 1941. Bombs every night.
My grandmother danced between air raids.
LHASA:
Dancing while London burned?
MOP:
Dancing BECAUSE London burned.
She said, "They can take our buildings,
but not our ability to move."
Starts dancing
This dance is resistance.
You think she dishonored the dead?
LHASA:
I think—
MOP:
She WAS the dead. Three weeks later.
Bomb hit during foxtrot.
Died mid-step, mid-joy.
The Nazis killed her body, not her spirit.
That distinction matters.
NAINY (witness, professional griever):
I sing at funerals. Hundred this year.
Want to know the difference between families?
LHASA:
Enlighten us.
NAINY:
The families that laugh while crying—they heal.
Those who only cry get stuck in the grief.
Begins singing joyful dirge
Listen to this song—sad melody, playful rhythm.
Your brain doesn't know whether to cry or smile.
QUENTIN:
So it does both?
NAINY:
Exactly. Both. That's the human response.
Not either/or. Both/and.
Grief and joy aren't opponents—
LARRY (the accused Joy, interrupting):
—they're dance partners.
LHASA:
The defendant will remain silent!
LARRY:
I've been silent through catastrophes.
Through wars, plagues, extinctions.
Silent while you debated my appropriateness.
No more.
QUENTIN:
Larry, you don't have to—
LARRY:
I don't choose when I arrive.
I'm not loyal to appropriateness.
I appear in cancer wards—
LHASA:
Exactly! Cancer wards! How dare you—
LARRY:
Ask the patients. Go ahead. Ask them.
Turns to audience
Who here has laughed during chemotherapy?
SEVERAL AUDIENCE MEMBERS (raising hands):
Me. I did. We made tumor jokes.
LARRY:
Were you mocking cancer?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2:
No! We were... surviving it. Differently.
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ACT TWO: The Evidence
LHASA:
Fine. Let's test your theories.
Test one: Force consistent joy for five minutes.
To audience
Smile. Now. Keep smiling. Don't stop.
AUDIENCE (trying):
This is... exhausting...
QUENTIN (at 2 minutes):
Feel the strain? The falseness?
Your zygomatic muscles are cramping.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3:
My face hurts. This isn't joy anymore.
LHASA:
Point taken. Test two: Suppress all joy for five minutes.
QUENTIN:
No smiling. No laughing. No joy.
During suppression, MOP starts telling jokes
MOP:
A priest, a rabbi, and a bomb walk into a shelter...
Some audience members struggle not to laugh
LHASA:
This proves nothing!
NAINY:
It proves everything. Watch their faces.
The effort to suppress joy is visible.
It's causing more tension than the joy would.
MOP (to struggling audience member):
Let me ask you something.
Your grandparents—did they survive something terrible?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 4:
The Holocaust. My grandmother.
MOP:
And did she ever laugh about it?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 4:
She... yes. Dark jokes. Very dark.
MOP:
Was she minimizing the Holocaust?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 4:
No! Never. She was... I think she was proving she survived it.
MOP:
Exactly. PROVING she survived.
To LHASA
Your ancestors who never laughed during hardship?
They didn't make it. That's why they're not your ancestors.
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ACT THREE: The Harvest Debate
LHASA:
But mining joy during others' suffering—surely that's selfish?
LARRY:
Define "mining."
LHASA:
Taking it. All of it. Hoarding joy while others suffer.
LARRY:
Joy isn't pie. My slice doesn't shrink yours.
Demonstrates with actual pie vs. light
Watch. Pie: finite.
Cuts pie, pieces get smaller
Light: infinite.
Lights candle from candle
Did the first flame diminish?
QUENTIN (showing mirror neurons on screen):
When you express joy, witnesses' neurons fire.
Points to audience member laughing
Everyone within ten feet is now experiencing
neurological joy echo. Involuntarily.
NAINY:
You're literally contagious.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 5:
So my joy creates more joy?
LARRY:
Always has. Your guilt about feeling joy
is like feeling guilty that your candle stays lit
while lighting others.
MOP:
Not harvesting available joy is like
letting fruit rot while people starve.
LHASA:
But the timing—
MOP:
The fruit doesn't care about timing!
It ripens when it ripens.
You harvest or you waste.
Which serves the hungry better?
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ACT FOUR: The Appropriateness Trial
LHASA:
Let's get specific. Scenarios for the jury.
SCENARIO 1:
QUENTIN (reading):
Laughing at funeral because remembering deceased's jokes.
NAINY:
I was at one last week. Son told story
about his mother's terrible cooking.
Everyone laughed. Then cried. Then laughed again.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 6:
That's honoring her memory.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 7:
But what if someone's actively sobbing?
LARRY:
Then you laugh quietly. Or internally.
The joy still exists. Expression adjusts.
LHASA:
Vote! Appropriate or inappropriate?
Audience votes: 87% appropriate
SCENARIO 2:
LHASA:
Loud unrelated joy during someone's active grieving.
MOP:
I've seen this. Wedding party next to funeral.
Both in same park. Wedding party oblivious.
QUENTIN:
How did the grievers react?
MOP:
Varied. Some angry. Some... oddly comforted.
Like life was continuing despite their loss.
NAINY:
Context is everything. Same joy, different meaning.
Reading the room is compassion, not suppression.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 8:
The joy itself isn't wrong?
LARRY:
Never. Only the expression might need adjustment.
Internal joy harms no one.
Audience votes: 73% inappropriate expression, but joy itself acceptable
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FINALE: The Verdict
LHASA (to audience):
You are the jury. Is joy guilty?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 9:
Guilty of what? Being human?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 10:
Of appearing when we need it most?
QUENTIN:
The prosecution has failed to prove
that joy during hardship causes harm.
Instead, we've proven it causes healing.
MOP:
My grandmother died dancing.
Mid-war. Mid-raid. Mid-step.
You know what her last words were?
"Don't let them stop the music."
The bombs didn't stop her joy.
Her death didn't either.
Dances
This is her dance. Still resisting.
NAINY:
Every culture that survives trauma
maintains joy practices during crisis.
Irish wakes—drinking and stories.
Jazz funerals—dirges then dancing.
Día de los Muertos—grief dressed as celebration.
LHASA (struggling):
But the guilt people feel—
LARRY:
Is learned. Not natural.
Children laugh at funerals until taught not to.
Who decided joy needs permission?
AUDIENCE MEMBER 11:
Not our ancestors.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 12:
Not our bodies.
QUENTIN:
The defense rests. Joy stands accused
of refusing to abandon humanity
during its darkest hours.
If that's guilt, we're all guilty.
LARRY (addressing audience directly):
I am inconsistent because consistency would kill you.
Your dopamine can't sustain me constantly.
I arrive uninvited because invitation would be too late.
By the time you think you deserve me, the moment's passed.
I persist through tragedy because tragedy isn't everything.
Even in bombing raids, sunsets happen.
I dance with grief because grief needs a partner.
Alone, grief spirals. With me, it moves.
I am not guilty of inappropriate appearance.
I am guilty of keeping you human when humanity is hardest.
I am necessary.
I am yours.
Use me.
LHASA (removing prosecutor's robe):
I... withdraw all charges.
Accepts permission slip
The prosecution needs this too.
Audience receives "Joy Permission Slips" valid for any circumstance
NAINY:
These aren't just paper. They're reminders.
When guilt comes, remember this trial.
MOP:
Remember joy is resistance.
QUENTIN:
Remember joy is renewable.
LARRY:
Remember I'm always acquitted.
Always necessary.
Always yours.
Final dance with entire cast and willing audience members
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[International elements and imagistic amplifications remain the same]
