If I had to guess, I think the OP was using the term "devastating" to mean "emotionally upsetting."
From what I've read of the play, I don't intend to see it. Some movies and plays are so upsetting that individuals who suffer from depression (such as myself) may want to avoid them. My "too dangerous" categories include stories where disability has destroyed a family ("Joe Egg" falls in this category), just about any Holocaust movie (my father was a refugee and we lost family members), stories involving child or animal abuse, stories involving the death of children or animals, and, possibly, "Twelve Years a Slave," the last of which I'm still mulling over.
Audrey, the Phantom Phanatic, who nonetheless would rather be Jean Valjean, who knew how to make lemonade out of lemons.