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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Climate Protesters Disrupt Broadway Performance of An Enemy of the People
Playbill: The March 14 performance of Broadway's An Enemy of the People was disrupted by three members of climate change activism group Extinction Rebellion NYC. The production is currently performing at Circle in the Square Theatre and is headed for a March 18 opening night.
While I appreciate that activism is necessary for people to change the world so that it is more like what a person wants, I think that some forms of activism are certainly more effective than others. I think that disrupting performances and generally attacking artistic institutions. While there are historical problems with many artistic institutions that need to be addressed, it seems to me that oftentimes the actions of these protesters do not come over well to the general public. Stopping a show does get an organization's news coverage, as is made clear in the existence of this article. That being said, oftentimes this news coverage is negative towards the organization which is stopping the show, with the artistic organization being seen as the victim. If the activist organization is in a situation where any publicity is good publicity this can be beneficial, but if an organization is already generally disliked, further bad press can be a nail in the coffin.
I’m a bit confused about what these climate activists were trying to accomplish by protesting during a performance of an enemy of the people. I do not know what the show is about but it sounds to me like it didn’t have anything to do with anti-climate change activism so I don’t really get the correlation here. In high school, I was a part of the Sunrise movement, which is a national organization working towards climate justice through political and social change so I have done my fair share of protesting in my time. Usually it would have to do with something specifically threatening and harming our environment, or Policies that would harm our environment. I don’t think that protests like this would be that successful because it is not really in a wider public space that might encourage other people to get involved. Instead it just probably upset the audience and the theatre. I feel like something like this would just make Extinction Rebellion NYC less reputable.
Reading the headline, the first thing that came to mind was the West End production of Les Mis that was interrupted during “Do You Hear the People Sing”, and I’m glad it got mentioned in the article. I get that the activists are trying to pick moments where it makes sense in the shows for them to join in, I actually think it’s kind of smart, but part of me thinks they are barking up the wrong tree. They get a brief moment of publicity because of the stunt, but then cause annoyance for the audience members and performers. Many of the people working on these productions or seeing these productions aren’t the ones creating the massive amounts of pollution. It’s possible that audience members might go look up these activist groups, but it’s more likely that they end up never even looking into the cause that the activists are fighting for.
3 comments:
While I appreciate that activism is necessary for people to change the world so that it is more like what a person wants, I think that some forms of activism are certainly more effective than others. I think that disrupting performances and generally attacking artistic institutions. While there are historical problems with many artistic institutions that need to be addressed, it seems to me that oftentimes the actions of these protesters do not come over well to the general public. Stopping a show does get an organization's news coverage, as is made clear in the existence of this article. That being said, oftentimes this news coverage is negative towards the organization which is stopping the show, with the artistic organization being seen as the victim. If the activist organization is in a situation where any publicity is good publicity this can be beneficial, but if an organization is already generally disliked, further bad press can be a nail in the coffin.
I’m a bit confused about what these climate activists were trying to accomplish by protesting during a performance of an enemy of the people. I do not know what the show is about but it sounds to me like it didn’t have anything to do with anti-climate change activism so I don’t really get the correlation here. In high school, I was a part of the Sunrise movement, which is a national organization working towards climate justice through political and social change so I have done my fair share of protesting in my time. Usually it would have to do with something specifically threatening and harming our environment, or Policies that would harm our environment. I don’t think that protests like this would be that successful because it is not really in a wider public space that might encourage other people to get involved. Instead it just probably upset the audience and the theatre. I feel like something like this would just make Extinction Rebellion NYC less reputable.
Reading the headline, the first thing that came to mind was the West End production of Les Mis that was interrupted during “Do You Hear the People Sing”, and I’m glad it got mentioned in the article. I get that the activists are trying to pick moments where it makes sense in the shows for them to join in, I actually think it’s kind of smart, but part of me thinks they are barking up the wrong tree. They get a brief moment of publicity because of the stunt, but then cause annoyance for the audience members and performers. Many of the people working on these productions or seeing these productions aren’t the ones creating the massive amounts of pollution. It’s possible that audience members might go look up these activist groups, but it’s more likely that they end up never even looking into the cause that the activists are fighting for.
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