A trigger warning for “The Pirates of Penzance”! I suppose we should be grateful that the weenification of Britannia has advanced so far, as we Colonists can now witness what lies ahead if we don’t get control over the culture and rescue it from the maw of The Great Stupid but quick.
“The Pirates of Penzance” is, of course, one of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular operettas, written during the Victorian era when almost everything was considered a justification for pearl-clutching. I have directed the show twice, performed it once, and seen it, oh, maybe 15 times not counting the mostly excellent film version starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. A child above the age of three showing alarm at this silly, satirical musical comedy about tender-hearted pirates who kidnap young maidens to marry them with the assistance of a “doctor of divinity” and the conflicted buccaneer apprentice who is the victim of a legal technicality ought to provoke a visit to the kid’s home by child services. An adult traumatized by the show belongs in a rest home.
If “The Pirates of Penzance” gets a trigger warning of even two sentences, the average Shakespeare tragedy must require a brochure. “Titus Andronicus” would need a recitation of possible PTSD side effect like at the end of a TV drug commercial.
Seeing symptoms like this makes me despair of ever freeing Western civilization from The Great Stupid. I fear that it is now embedded in the human species’ DNA, just as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the chemical found in Teflon, is believed to be contaminating every American’s blood.
Ethics Alarms 
The Globe Theater has been issuing “trigger warnings” for production of works by Shakespeare for over a year (at least). The warnings are not really any longer than the one for The Pirates of Penzance.
All-in-all I would be willing to bet that “trigger warnings” will be a part of some theater productions as well as college classes for years to come given the communities (e.g., actors, professors).
“Given the communities”
Bingo.
“Seeing symptoms like this makes me despair of ever freeing Western civilization from The Great Stupid. I fear that it is now embedded in the human species’ DNA…”
It is more specifically embedded in the culture, but I think not to an irreversible extent. Culture seems to turn on a dime these days with fad giving way to fad very quickly. Once most people decide they’ve had enough of this stupidity, it will slink away to die. My mantra for this and other contemporary cultural sicknesses is still, for now, “This, too shall pass.”
“Please speak to a member of the staff for more information.” That has to be some sort of joke. Can you imagine being an usher and someone asks, “for more information.” Are they going to act out the “references to alcohol abuse and mild violence” as a sort of preview? (Is there mild violence or is mild violence simply referred to?) The whole thing would make a great Monty Python skit. John Cleese could play the usher. Maybe even with props. He could even pop into various costumes to play various roles. Maybe nothing’s changed in England since the time The Pythons roamed the earth.
You know what the scary reference to alcohol is? “Pour Oh Pour the Pirate Sherry,” Gilbert’s opening number signalling what weenies these pirates are. “Pirate sherry“? That’s a far cry from “Yohoho and a bottle of rum”!