Next week we celebrate the anniversaries of three masterpieces of Musical Theatre: Jesus Christ Superstar, opened 12 October, 1971, Les Misérables, 8th October 1985, and The Phantom of the Opera, 9th October, 1986.
All three of these foundational works in the post-war musical-theatre canon continue to enthral audiences around the world, working their magic on today’s audiences just as powerfully today as when they exploded onto the world stage.
But for one section of those audiences, namely adolescents and young adults, the experience will often be personally foundational, establishing a high-water mark of experience that they will return to again and again throughout their lives.
This much-studied psychological phenomenon is called The Reminiscence Bump Effect, and, when related to music (and, by extension, Musical Theatre) it specifically describes ‘a relative increase in the amount of personally significant memories associated with, or the amount of spontaneous autobiographical memories evoked by, music (and Musical Theatre) from listeners’ adolescence and early adulthood.*
The science bit…
During adolescence and early adulthood, the ‘social reorientation away from family and towards friends is mirrored by neurophysiological changes in both brain structure and brain function focused on ‘reward processing and pro-social behaviour.’
Indeed, according to something called The Social Bonding Hypothesis, the prime evolutionary benefit of music (and, ergo, Musical Theatre) is its role in forming and maintaining relationships.
Or, as one recent study suggests: ‘the engagement of the brain’s reward system leads to positive emotional affiliations with those with whom music is shared.’
But don’t take my word for it.
The next time you’re fortunate enough to be experiencing Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables or The Phantom of the Opera, take a closer look at the faces, and into the eyes, of the audience members around you.** Those patrons basking in the re-ignited memories of far-off days. Or those younger, fresher faces, laying down memories that they will be returning to for decades to come.***
It is no coincidence that Youth, with all its romance, obstacles and rebellions, stands tall, and centre-stage, in all three shows.
And no surprise that the shows’ songs, hardwired into our youthful brains, resurface not just in darkened auditoria, but in our daily lives. It only takes the opening bars of a much-loved number, acting as an emotional time-travel touchstone, to deliver a 50 megawatt emotional jolt to the system.
And personally (geekily?) speaking, from Opening Night to today, I don’t think a week has gone by when I haven’t sung a verse or two with Jesus, Valjean or Javert.
…accompanied, as always, by my Younger, more excitable (and occasionally moon-howling) Self.
DT
4th October, 2024
*One 2020 study, among adults aged 18-82, found that most memories were associated with music with a song-specific age between 10–19 years (with a peak around 14 years).
**If it’s too dark to see the whites of their eyes, here’s an old Theatre Manager’s trick for gauging emotional reaction. When gripped by a performance, an audience member will often literally ‘grip’ their own hands (or those of their partner/parent). As the intensity increases, they will then unclasp their hands to rub their tummies or finger their necks, and when the flow of emotion reaches its crescendo they will invariably raise their fingers to their mouths, as if they have to physically hide their response to the performance (N.B. care must be taken not to mistake the latter for patrons stifling yawns!).
**New shows can successfully harvest the Reminiscent Bump Effect through casting. The early years of Phantom, London, benefitted hugely from Michael Crawford’s utterly devoted (and predominantly female) fanbase.
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