Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 84

extended the notion of Epic Theatre further with his notion of the “spectactor,”
highlighting the capacity of the audience member to transform the
reality of the performance, and by extension, to rehearse a transformation
of the reality in which they live (����). While Boal’s greatest influence has
been felt outside traditional theatre spaces, in community settings, villages,
and in the streets, more and more contemporary performance practitioners
are building on this function of the “spect-actor,” by explicitly engaging
audiences within the performances as interlocutors, sometimes voting on,
interrupting, or otherwise participating in and influencing the staged action.
As we navigate an ever more polarized world, it is vital for us to acknowledge
that the potency of witnessing within the framework of performance not
only transpires between performer and audience, but is negotiated among
the varied publics that may constitute this audience, and that much of the
meaning that performance generates may be shaped and negotiated not
only between performer and audience, but in and among diverse audiences.
However, conscious we may or may not be of it in a given moment, our
experience is significantly impacted by the reality of the audience members
around us. Comedy, for example, is an especially heightened social space
since we respond to the laughter of others. Whether we find that laughter
infectious, alienating, or merely curious, it profoundly impacts our experience
and our process of making meaning. Even if we are in an audience where the
performance is not reaching us, if others are deeply moved or responding with
loud laughter, we notice that and begin to ask ourselves what is transpiring
for them, and sometimes even to think differently about our own reactions.
In practice, most audiences for performances around the world, whether
in major opera houses and theaters, or community centers and school
auditoriums, or on the streets and in villages, are still relatively homogeneous.
For so many powerful and enduring reasons, people tend to gather with
people who are relatively like them. Of course, performance can often gain
its power from this implicit sense of shared experience and understanding,
the sense of community and “safe space” that comes from this relative
homogeneity. But just as we should be suspicious of a jury that is made
up of people who are apparently very similar, it is increasingly urgent for
performance, when and where it can, to find a way to take place among
witnesses who are different than each other—in terms of cultural and
ideological background, age, class, race, faith, gender identity, and sexual
preference. Otherwise, performance risks becoming a symptom of our
polarized and siloed world, with our venues being physical manifestations
of the “bubbles” we inhabit. How can we imagine performance as a vehicle
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