Content too mature for a young audience?

I am concerned by the accessibility of gender-bending plays and musicals with cross-dressing male actors to youth as young as 12 years of age.

Take for example, W!ld Rice’s recent production of The Importance of Being Earnest. On the National Arts Council Art Education Programme website, this play was noted for mature content, with a vague advisory of an “all-male cast” and “unconventional staging”. It was recommended for students from as young as 13 years old.

Teenagers have to navigate the shoals of adolescence which include discovering their own sexual identity, relating to the opposite gender, and figuring out a plethora of psychological and sexual issues within themselves which need affirmation from family, friends and society.

Ideally, we hope to see our youth mature with healthy self-esteem. The easy accessibility to stage performances with exaggerated performances by cross-dressing male actors does nothing to instil the kind of confidence we hope our youth will attain. We are merely sending our impressionable youth mixed signals as they develop sexually, emotionally and socially.

Artistic freedom is best encouraged hand-in-hand with discerning audiences. At what age is exposure to alternative lifestyles and cross-dressing desirable? An audience too young to absorb what they see on stage need the guidance of mature mentors, parents and other leaders.

Theatre practitioners, community leaders and policymakers need to rethink what is age-appropriate when it comes to mature content in the performing arts.