A new production of Evita starring Rachel Zegler is being ridiculed for its ‘woke’ trigger warnings about ‘loud music and sudden noises’.
His Majesty’s Theatre released a guide for audiences of the musical, which has been deemed suitable for ages eight and above, telling audience members the timings of the potential triggers.
Audiences were alerted to instances of strobe lighting, flashing lights and haze.
Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, told The Sun: ‘This is beyond parody. It won’t be long before theatres ask audiences not to applaud at the end in case they trigger people who are sensitive to noise.’
The West End musical tells the story of Eva Peron, the wife of Argentine President Juan Perónm, whose life begins as a poor girl to a powerful political figure and beloved First Lady.
The show, fronted by the Snow White actress, ends with her early death from cancer at age 33 and includes standards such as Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.
The row comes after paying fans vented their fury when Zegler belted out Don’t Cry for Me Argentina at the London Palladium Theatre on Saturday night attracting hundreds of fans on the street as she sang from the outside balcony.
One person wrote: ‘Sorry, are you saying I’ve paid £350 for 2 tickets and she’s singing the biggest number outside at people who haven’t paid?’
Another explained that they ‘go to the theatre to share the same space with a performer’.
Theatre trigger warnings have been blasted in the past by stage greats including Sir Ian McKellen.
He has said: ‘I think it’s ludicrous. I like to be surprised by loud noises and outrageous behaviour on stage.’
Theatre fans were previously given 15 trigger warnings for a performance of Phantom of the Opera including that it features depictions of violence and death.
Viewers were warned to expect loud sounds, gun shots, flashing lights, haze, fire, pyrotechnics and depictions of violence and death at certain points during the performance.
It’s just the latest project involving Zegler that has caused outrage, after the 24-year-old’s woke’ Disney reboot of Snow White.
The remake of the classic 1937 animated film scored a lowly 39% critic approval rating (out of 260 reviews) on movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.
The film had a £200million budget but made just £148million at the box office as it was criticised for ‘going woke’.
Actors were replaced with CGI dwarves, and the storyline was altered to focus on the princess evolving into a fearless leader, rather than her journey ending in romance.
Zegler commented that the original Disney film was ‘extremely dated when it comes to the ideas of women being in roles of power.’
She added: ‘People are making these jokes about ours being the PC Snow White, where it’s, like, yeah, it is — because it needed that.’
And she stoked controversy by writing ‘and always remember, free Palestine’ after an X post last August in which she discussed the hype for the embattled fairytale flick.
Daily Mail’s Brian Viner gave the film two out of five stars, calling it a ‘painfully muddle-headed affair’ and ‘pallid reimagining’, while admitting that Zegler ‘plainly has oodles of talent’.
The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw also gave it a one out of five rating and called it a ‘pointless’ and ‘exhaustingly awful reboot’ with ‘tiresome pseudo-progressive additions that tie the whole thing in knots.’
‘Where other movies are playfully reimagining the backstories of famous villains, this one plays it straight, but with carefully curated revisionist tweaks.
‘Those otherwise estimable performers Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot are now forced to go through the motions, and they give the dullest performances of their lives.’
