On the Stratford Festival Theatre Website:
“This production contains references to death and dying that some people may find distressing”.
You have got to be kidding.
You mean the theatre company that has regularly presented “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” and “Richard II” and “Henry IV” etc., for more than 50 years, has suddenly decided that audiences need to be warned that some characters in the play they are watching might get killed?
Is there a risk that some people might spend $130 on tickets and travel all the way to Stratford and then accidentally stumble into Macbeth offing King Duncan, or Hamlet offing Polonius, or Ophelia offing herself?
“Some” people? But not “all” people. Me, for example: I think I might enjoy seeing Othello or Lear bite the dust.
I would prefer not to be warned.
But seriously: have the promotional team at Stratford Festival Theatre lost their minds? Do they imagine some theatre-goer rushing out of the theatre weeping and traumatized because they didn’t know Banquo was going to get killed and are shocked that a play at a Shakespearean festival theatre would have death in it?
Look, folks, Stratford itself has the solution: it now offers a multitude of anodyne confections for every taste! Check it out,