Playwright warns wokeness is a form of ‘ideological terrorism’
‘Who is left to challenge our received wisdoms and accepted morality? Who will purge and cleanse?’
A LEADING playwright warns that an “ideological terrorism” and fear of judgment or causing offence are stifling creativity to the point where writers will be reduced to writing only about people like themselves.
In a tirade on “wokeism”, Ryan Craig, 49, whose dramas have been staged at the National Theatre and on the BBC, asks: “Am I going to only be confined to writing about middle-aged Jewish men? That’s going to be a problem for me because I’m going to run out of road.”
He told The Sunday Telegraph: “It used to be that we wanted to please everybody. Now we don’t want to upset anybody – anybody. But that is an impossible situation…
“It’s a fear of judgment and cancellation. There’s an element of ideological terrorism going on. I don’t want to be prevented from exploring ideas because I think that somebody’s not going to like it.
“We are all becoming polarised even within our tribes. I worry about writers who want to write about things but won’t for fear of upsetting people.
“These days, upsetting people means either they won’t do your play or, if they do, you’ll get into trouble, and they won’t do the rest of your work.”
Criticisms that go to the heart of the woke debate are explored in his forthcoming book, Writing in Coffee Shops:
Confessions of a Playwright, to be published by Bloomsbury on Feb 11. He writes: “I worry that artists are self-censoring to the point of creative extinction.
“And that’s bad news for the health of our democracy because who is left to challenge our received wisdoms and accepted morality? Who will purge and cleanse and force us to see things in new ways?”
He said that, at a discussion after one of his plays, a young woman asked who the show was for: “Pretty much every panel I’ve ever been on, someone asks a question like this. It bothers me. What’s it implying?
“That some people deserve theatre more than others? That writers should write for one group and not another? I don’t know any working playwright worth their salt who only wants to speak to one tribe…
“Our job is to connect to some universal truth about the human condition. We don’t stand on the door like nightclub bouncers checking everyone’s wearing the right ideological trousers.”
Earlier this month, Russell T Davies, the Bafta-winning screenwriter, told Radio Times that gay roles should be reserved for gay actors and, in 2019, Falsettos, a West End musical about a Jewish family, sparked a row amid claims that only non-Jewish actors had been cast.
Mr Craig argues that actors and writers should be able to climb into somebody else’s skin: “That’s the whole point.
“You’re reaching out to somebody else’s humanity and trying to connect with that humanity.
“Are we going to go around asking everybody what their identity is, what their sexuality is?”
He is now writing a play on censorship, commissioned by the Bath Theatre Royal: “It’s going to be, hopefully, a stimulating comedy of ideas.”