Vulnerability, care and hope in audience research: theatre as a site of struggle for an intergenerational politics

ABSTRACT This article considers the theatre as a vital site for the formation of an ‘intergenerational polis’ through its examination of the verbatim play, Towards Youth: A play on radical hope, by Andrew Kushnir. Performed in Toronto from February to March, 2019, at Crow’s Theatre, Towards Youth attracted a uniquely intergenerational audience. Our audience research on this production, consisting of post-performance interviews, conducted in the lobby of Crow’s Theatre, gave rise to difficult dialogues between generations, particularly regarding questions of ‘intergenerational injustice’ at these times of economic, environmental, and socio-political precarity. We examine how discomfort,witnessing and vulnerability manifested in these audience interviews and in the development of a tentative and temporary ‘intergenerational polis’ in the theatre. We look to how the affective labour performed by the audience in these interviews sought to establish an ‘ethics of care’ between some younger and older audience members, as a practice of hope in uncertain times. This research gestures towards the importance of attuning to ‘dissensus’ in audience research towards the cultivation of a critical and civically-engaged spectatorship.