They were somewhere else, it seems…scrolling, perhaps, or shaking their heads at headlines before moving on. They were in kitchens, in cars, in living rooms lit by the quiet glow of phones.

They were everywhere except the theatre, where an Indigenous troupe from the South Pacific stood beneath warm lights and performed to rows of empty seats that looked back at them like closed eyes.

The same theatre, the same week, had been full of noise before that. Not applause…noise. Emails arriving in angry waves. Phone calls that began sharp and only sharpened further. The box office staff answering again and again, voices trying to stay even as they explained the same simple thing: It’s a rental. We didn’t program this show. We just work here.

A theatre is supposed to be a place where voices gather.

That week it became a place where voices collided.

One show sold out before it even arrived…its humour sharpened against Indigenous people, murdered civilians, history… aimed like a stone. It filled seats easily.

Anger travels fast when it feels like permission.

The theatre was bombarded with hate mail for hosting it, even though it wasn’t their show. Staff absorbed the blows meant for an institution that was only a room being rented out.

Then the show was cancelled.

Silence might have been expected after that, but silence is rarely what follows anger.

The calls changed direction.

The emails turned again. Now the staff were blamed for the cancellation, as though they themselves had reached out from behind the box office glass and turned the key in the lock.

For over a week they had defended their jobs, their building, their role. Now they stood in the middle of the storm from both directions.

And still the other show played. The Indigenous theatre group came all the way across the ocean carrying sacred stories, beautiful soft voices, and honest history…all presented in precious vessel of compassion disguised as theatre, something generous enough to share with strangers.

Where were the people?

They stepped on stage anyway. Actors always do. They performed with the same breath and the same care, even if the audience was small enough to count without moving your head.

Where were the people?

Some were busy condemning hate. Some were busy defending what they called comedy. Some were simply tired of the whole woke argument and chose not to enter the building ever again, in defiance. Some declared their indignation with venomous words; others with mocking memes but all with arms crossed firmly over hardened chests, punctuated by very a vocal harumph.

The result was a strange kind of victory for no one.

The hateful show never happened… but it did move on to another sold-out theatre… just up the highway.

The compassionate show was barely seen.

The staff carried the bruises of both.

So, who won?

Did the people who hate win, because their noise filled the week and the weak?
Did the people who hate the haters win, because the show was cancelled?

Or did indifference win quietly, slipping past both sides while a group of artists performed to empty seats?

The theatre, after all, measures something simple: presence. Bodies in chairs. Breath shared in a room.

And absence is also a kind of answer.

Where does hate come from? No one seems to agree. Some say fear. Some say history. Some say it grows in the small places where people stop listening to one another.

But sometimes it also grows in the space where people mean well, yet never arrive.

Because hate rarely needs everyone. It only needs enough.

Kindness, on the other hand, requires people to show up.

Words and sketch Joëlle Rabu 03.10.26