The play was written by a Sikh woman and raised issues that male memebers of that religion felt should not be addressed.
However,they mounted a peaceful and perfectly legal protest outside the theatre every night. The Theatre itself had liased with Sikh religious leaders before the play was put on the stage and printed a leaflet putting their views against the play which was handed to every audience member, and also read from the stage before the play started.
On Saturday night the peaceful picketing turned to violence. Police were attacked and five injured. Doors were torn off, windows broken, internal fittings smashed in the foyer and theatre staff attacked.
A production on another stage was for children and the parents and kids were terrified and that play was abandoned and the audience evacuated. The Sikh leaders could not guarantee that the same thing would not happen on other nights and threatened that bus loads of protesters would come from all over the country.
The play was closed because a mob attacked and terrorised a theatre.
Surely a terrible conclusion and a severe setback for all in our community of performance arts.