says the Tony Award-winning director Trigger warnings risk “coddling” theater audiences

John Doyle, the Tony Award-winning theater director, has warned that warnings before plays could lead to “coddling” audiences and sanitizing the theater.

“Take care of the audience, but theater is supposed to make you uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make you afraid. It’s supposed to make you afraid,” said the Scottish director, who has run four British theatres.

“The Greeks wrote those plays because they wanted you to look at your inner darkness. If we pamper the audience too much, what’s the point?”

Noting that some universities will not teach Shakespeare “because they don’t want to upset students,” Doyle said: “Shakespeare wrote about everything there could be about the human condition at its darkest. He wrote about incest, murder, regicide, you name it. But there will be nothing left if we make everything ‘good’. We should not be afraid to challenge the audience at every opportunity.”

He added: “My response is simple – why would you read, watch or perform a play if you have been warned that it might upset you? It is intended to upset you.”

“There is a huge debate to be had about how we inform our audiences and how we maintain the surprise and disruption inherent in the gaming industry.”

Trigger warnings inform audiences that they may find a particular drama distressing, alerting them to everything from violence to loud noises. The Royal Shakespeare Company has included what it describes as “content advisory” notices in its new production of Hamlet, telling audiences that it contains “scenes of an adult nature including death and depictions of grief”.

In 2024, Judi Dench rejected the need for such warnings, advising “sensitive” fans not to go to the theatre, saying: “It should be a very long warning before King Lear or Titus Andronicus.”

Doyle recalls working with students in a production of Strindberg’s “Miss Julie”: “One of them was angry with me because I hadn’t given her a warning about the play. She said the play had upset her. I said, ‘Well, Strindberg wanted you to be upset. If I had given you a warning, you would have defeated the writer’s purpose.'”

Doyle was hailed as the savior of the Broadway musical. His well-known productions include “Sweeney Todd,” “Company,” and “The Color Purple.” The latter was a huge box office success, starring Cynthia Erivo and Jennifer Hudson on Broadway in 2015, having moved from London, where it was staged by the Meniere Chocolate Factory.

He has just published his first book, Opening Doors: Reimagining the American Musical, which “reflects the fifty-year theatrical journey” undertaken by a boy who grew up in a council house in Inverness in a family with no money.

In one clip, he mentioned that his mother came from a generation “devoid” of warnings. “They may confront the uncomfortable aspects that make us human,” he wrote. “I have major reservations about warning the audience about what they are going to experience. Isn’t that raw experience the point of theatre? Maybe discomfort really is part of the work.”

Part of the problem, he said, is the high cost of showcasing production in an industry where the financial risks are “extreme” and very few companies get back the money they invest. “Producers and directors have become afraid to challenge audiences because someone might say: ‘Oh, don’t go and find it so annoying.’”

Critics have noted that Doyle made his name by stripping musicals down to their essentials. In productions such as Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof, for example, actors played musical instruments on stage.

He believes the cost of making theater is “out of control” and that the art form is “not as culturally inclusive as it could be”, partly because tickets have become so expensive.

He added: “This is because the theater industry is very expensive, and I think this is not necessary. We should not make films on stage that depend on spectacle and amazing special effects.”

“We have to go back to honest storytelling that doesn’t need to cost a lot. Once you put technological images on a platform as an artist, you’re no longer really in control of that. It’s not your soul. Go back to something that is storytelling, which is people in a room talking to each other.”