In ‘The Years,’ an Abortion Scene Is Causing Audience Members to Pass Out
“The Years,” running in London, dramatizes a woman’s life from teenage thrills to later-life sex. One intense scene is causing audience members to pass out.About 40 minutes into a recent performance of “The Years” in London, Stephanie Schwartz suddenly felt ill and had to put her head between her legs.Onstage at the Harold Pinter Theater, the actress Romola Garai was holding two knitting needles while portraying a young Frenchwoman trying to give herself an abortion. The scene was set in 1964, a time when medical abortions were illegal in France, and Garai’s character wasn’t ready for motherhood.Schwartz, 39, said she had started feeling faint as Garai’s character, Annie, described her attempt to carry out the procedure in stark, if brief, detail. But then, Schwartz recalled, there was a commotion in the balcony above. An audience member had actually passed out.Since opening last summer for a short run at the Almeida Theater, then again last month on the West End, “The Years” has been the talk of London’s theaterland. That has as much to do with audience reactions to the six-minute abortion scene as the near-universal critical acclaim that the production and its five actresses received for their powerful portrayal of one woman’s life.While fainting theatergoers are nothing new — several passed out over the onstage torture in Sarah Kane’s “Cleansed” at the National Theater almost a decade ago — the sheer number keeling over at “The Years” stands out. Sonia Friedman, the show’s producer, said that at least one person has fainted at every performance despite a warning to ticketholders.Romola Garai assumed that British theatergoers were so accustomed to viewing bloody productions of Shakespeare that they were unlikely to have a strong reaction to the play’s abortion scene.Helen MurrayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
