By Jenylle Rufin
As audiences watched Jesus' supporters proudly wave a pride flag, fight against police and the government, and witness the death of their radical leader during a production of Jesus Christ Superstar in a Catholic high school, All Saints Catholic Secondary School's production of Jesus Christ Superstar was an interesting audience environment for observation and analysis.
This past month, I went to watch two performances of Jesus Christ Superstar at my previous high school, All Saints Catholic secondary school in Whitby, Ontario. This modern adaptation of Jesus' death presented the audience with a emotional and radical view on a religious and conservative story. It stirred up many discussions among the audience, some even while the performance was happening. The first performance I went to was the production's opening night. Energies were high, people were excited. Lights dimmed. The show is starting. "Welcome to All Saints catholic secondary school's production of Jesus Christ Superstar…recording and flash photography are strictly prohibited" director and producer Johnny Soln states during his pre-show announcement. Already, restrictions and rules have already been placed on the audience before the curtains even open. I look around the audience as the show starts, everyone looks uniform in the semi-darkness; sitting still, feet away from the isles, no phone in sight. "wow, how much power did we as an audience just unknowingly and unwillingly give to these performers and the producer of this show just by sitting in these seats?", I ask to myself. But as I watched the show I start to question: "did we really give them this power unknowingly and unwillingly?".
By the third number of the show, I notice an audience member a few seats down from me, practically standing and dancing on the spot as the performers sang and danced. "You're not supposed to be doing that" I said to myself. But then I caught myself, "according to who? Why have we normalized certain actions within the theatre and rejected others?" I wondered. There were never any rules explicitly stating that audiences can't dance on the spot, if anything, as the show went on this audience member started all the cheering and claps and created a great audience atmosphere. This demonstrates how aware we as audiences are about co-presence. We are aware that we are watching this performance with other people and allow each others presence, actions, and energy towards the show also affect our energies and how we act towards the show. As the show progressed, came the torture and death of Jesus. As the characters started to become emotional during their songs, I noticed a long pause then a slowly growing applause. You could practically hear the audiences thinking "am I supposed to clap?" after every emotional scene.
The second time I watched the show was closing night, one again the show was full, sold out, and started the same way: pre-show announcement, uniform looking audience. However, the audience environment was different this time. Practically all audience members followed proper audience etiquette the whole time, that is, until a controversial image was depicted on stage. As Jesus' supporters had a big number on stage full of singing and dancing in support for Jesus, a large pride flag was waved on stage by one of the actors. I looked around and saw people started talking to each other, pointing at the flag, whispering, shaking their head. Seeing Jesus' supporters on stage proudly waving a pride flag in a catholic high school production caused quite the stir to say the least. But not long after people started to whisper, many started shushing them. And quickly, the audiences snapped back into acting in proper audience etiquette. This is what Baz Kershaw points out in his observation on western audiences in his article "Oh for Unruly Audiences!", "despite[a] play's shocking determination to provoke a riven response, it was largely neutered by the disciplines to which audiences currently submit… audiences have increasingly been prevented from becoming unruly." They explain that "this may be a measure of the disempowerment of both audiences and the communities they may represent." Despite the fact that audiences may have disagreed with what they saw on stage, most still applauded after the number. This expectation of audiences to act a certain way and create a "good" audience rather than an "unruly" audience diminishes any differences within audiences and enforce the audience to be passive and conform to the hegemonic ideals and actions surrounding audiences. This is what Kershaw also expands on as he states that: "communities that are constituted through applause and the other protocols of theatre - however liberal or revolutionary they may be - may rely more on an elimination of difference than on a recognition of legitimate debate, even when the onstage representations celebrate difference and debate." This is not me arguing that those who had an issue with seeing the pride flag on stage should have caused problems within the auditorium, rather I find it quite interesting that many aren't be afraid to speak their mind and discuss their rather controversial beliefs outside of the auditorium, whether it's in person or especially on social media, but once they enter a performance space, with performers on stage and fellow audiences around them, these actions displaying differences and beliefs, which may conflict with what they see one stage and what the majority of audiences believe, suddenly diminish in the attempt to be "proper" audience members.
Going back to the question that I posed earlier: "how much power did we as an audience just unknowingly and unwillingly give to these performers and the producer of this show just by sitting in these seats? Did we really give them this power unknowingly and unwillingly?". As I observed all of these audience interactions in these show, I realized that rather than the creator and performers imposing their power over us as an audience, we are the ones who are willingly giving them power. Audiences feel the obligation to act a certain way as a form of respect to the performers who work so hard on the performance. Performers are viewed by the audiences to be the professional, and put on a pedestal by audiences. As Kershaw explains, "[audiences] succumbed, probably unwittingly, to the dubious power of the professional; and as they were further transmuted from clients to customers in the past twenty years or so[,] they submitted, maybe even happily, to the dehumanizing dominance of the market." The performers are seen as the "professional expert" and the audiences are the "the subservience of the supplicant-client," as such, audiences became "better behaved." Everything we do as an audience, the way we respond, act, and even sit is done in a way that we are submitting to the performers and done in a way that will benefit the performers the best. This is what Darko Suvin defines as the “unspoken theatre contract.” As the performers put in time and hard labour to entertain the audiences through this performance, in return, the audiences have unspokenly agreed to support the performance and performers in any way they can, and this is usually done by behaving “appropriately.” Audiences were hesitant to clap during emotional scenes because they didn't know if they were supposed to clap, fellow audiences told others to be quiet because the talking would distract the performers and be seen as "unruly", and audiences always ended each performance with a standing ovation. As such, the way we act as audiences is not imposed or forced onto us by the creators or performers, rather it is something we as audiences willingly do. We are willingly giving the performers the power, acting in the way we think the performers would want us to, and correcting fellow audiences who don't act accordingly. While this demonstrates the power relationships in a performance between the performer/creators vs. audience it also demonstrates the power relationship of audience vs. audience. While audiences continuously maintain a power relationship between themselves and the performers that is constantly shifting, we often forget about the power relationships we as audiences have on each other. Audience not only influence each other and the energy within the room but also police each other in order to maintain proper audience etiquette.