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.
2 comments:
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.
While I can understand what the author is trying to say and the points they are making, I can't help but want to scream "You aren't owed anyone's body!" The author seems not to understand the fact that no matter what an actor consents to on stage that does not give an audience member the right to do whatever they want with that, especially taking pictures. I don't think taking precautions for an actor's safety, no matter how famous they are, can take that much away from the show, whatever the message may be. Those are still real people who have lives to live, and who knows what an audience member may do with said images simply because they can. If I were an audience member I would be surprised and content knowing that a producer/company does care that much about their actors to take such precautions. It also begs the question of when this person goes to see a show do they only see the "performance" as good if they can really be convinced that the story is really happening in front of them? Will they always think a production of cats is poorly done because the people can't actually transform into cats? How do they feel about the policing of phones otherwise in a show with less sensitive content?
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