theconversation.com: As I joined the long queue outside London’s Noël Coward Theatre for Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play, I was greeted by an usher who asked to see my phone. When I produced my mobile, the usher put a sticker over my phone’s camera that said “Starbucks!” (an inside joke from the play, I later discovered). Several times before we took our seats, ushers verified that the stickers on our phones were in place.
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This article seems very against the precautions taken to protect Harrington’s image, such as stickers over phone cameras and ushers policing the aisles. While I see the point that being aware of ushers moving about the space, stopping people from taking photos, might take someone out of the moment of the performance, I do think it’s absolutely fair for them to enforce those boundaries and protect the actor’s emotional safety. Audiences (except in certain interactive experiences) generally aren’t meant to take any photos at all, and the idea that they would not only take photos during a performance but do it particularly to capture an actor’s nudity is both disrespectful and disruptive to a very vulnerable moment. I don’t think that theatre staff making sure that rules are followed takes away from the meaning of the play, but I wonder if there is a truly foolproof method of doing so.
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