Fiennes: Axe trigger warnings in theatre
RALPH Fiennes called for theatres to scrap trigger warnings yesterday – because people should be ‘shocked and disturbed’ by live performances.
The British star of Schindler’s List and the Harry Potter films, is currently performing in a touring production of Macbeth.
Fiennes, 61, told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: ‘We didn’t used to have trigger warnings. I mean, there are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth – terrible murders.
‘But I think the impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked and you should be disturbed. I don’t think you should be prepared for these things.
‘Shakespeare’s plays are full of murderers, full of horror. It’s the shock, the unexpected – that’s what makes theatre so exciting.’
Fiennes, who has been nominated for an Oscar twice and won a Tony award for best actor in a US production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1995, said that although trigger warnings should be axed, health warnings for effects such as strobe lights should still be flagged.
Fellow actor Simon Callow has railed against trigger warnings in a letter to The Times after it emerged that a theatre told audiences The Sound Of Music touched on ‘the threat of Nazi Germany and the annexation of Austria’. Known for the films A Room With A View and Four Weddings And A Funeral, the 74-year- old said theatre was ‘a safe space’ and ‘not a pulpit, but a gymnasium of the imagination’.
Fiennes also called ticket prices ‘worryingly high at the moment, particularly in the West End’, when asked about London’s Savoy Theatre reportedly charging audience members £300 to see Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Fiennes called for prices to come down, and said his production of Macbeth had ‘20 per cent of our tickets across the board’ in the £15 to £20 range, while 50 per cent cost around £50.
His fears were echoed by Irish actor Andrew Scott, 47, who has starred in Fleabag and Sherlock. He said it was ‘frustrating’ that ‘no matter how zeitgeisty or how modern your play is, if you are having to spend £150, no person between the age of 16 to 25 or beyond is going to be able to afford that’.
Scott, who is appearing in Anton Chekhov’s play Vanya, told Radio 4’s Broadcasting House that theatres could sell cheaper tickets for certain shows, warning that live performance should not ‘remain an elitist art form’.