The Years, or: when trigger warnings double as dramaturgy. 

The London production’s emphasis on its content advisories conditions audiences to expect a level of trauma that warrants such voluminous advance notice.

This trigger-warning-triggered expectation casts a pall of dread over every single moment, inducing a constant state of doomed suspense over how this girl’s life will lead to the promised turpitude.  

And once this turpitude arrives, The Years seems to understand that theater can tap into the power of the audience being in the same room as the real human bodies performing the art. 

It must be a reason The Years’ abortion-description scene has necessitated such trigger warnings.

It’s a factor in the audience feeling what it’s like to be in the presence of a 21st-century Angry Young Man in Robert Icke’s Manhunt.

And it’s a factor in Manuel Oliver’s Guac; sharing the space with a soul who actually suffered the worst tragedy.