Broadway's 1984 causes audience members to faint and vomit

'[The production] allows you to empathise in a visceral way, and that means making the audience physically and emotionally uncomfortable,' says one of the actors

Tom Sturridge and Olivia Wilde speak onstage during the Tony Awards (Getty Images)

Theatre goers have vomited and fainted in the latest Broadway production of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.

At least four audience members have passed out during performance, some attendees have thrown up, and others have shouted at actors on stage.

An incident following one performance led to people getting into a fight, according to Hollywood Reporter.

After a performance last week, actor Olivia Wilde, who plays the role of Julia said: “I’m not surprised, since this experience is unique, bold and immersive.

“It allows you to empathise in a visceral way, and that means making the audience physically and emotionally uncomfortable.”

She later apologised for the shock she may have caused in a tweet.

“Sending my love to those four people who fainted in the audience," she wrote. "Warning: this is not your grandma’s Broadway. Hope all are you!”

Adverse reactions to the production may have also been caused by the strobe lighting and effects.

The novel follows Everyman Winston Smith and his brief, vicious battle with totalitarianism, brought about by his relationship with a tyrannical government.

The play, like the book, has graphic scenes of torture.

Ben Brantley, a reviewer at The New York Times, wrote: “Though I usually don’t provide trigger warnings in my reviews, I feel obliged to do so here. The interrogations that Winston undergoes in the play’s second half are graphic enough to verge on torture porn.”

Ms Wilde is no stranger to the violence of the novel, having broken her tailbone and split her lip during a preview performance, and fellow actor Tom Sturridge, broke his nose.

Duncan Macmillan one of the directors of the production told The Hollywood Reporter: “We’re not trying to be willfully assaultive or exploitatively shock people, but there’s nothing here or in the disturbing novel that isn’t happening right now, somewhere around the world: people are being detained without trial, tortured and executed."

Director Robert Icke echoed the sentiments: “You can stay and watch or you can leave — that’s a perfectly fine reaction to watching someone be tortured.”

Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to watch the show.