The actual dialogue strays toward the banal because, the efforts of the strong cast notwithstanding, it carries too little dramatic freight. Running half an hour shorter than Ivo van Hove’s original Dutch version that played BAM, there are no lines or speeches eloquent enough to portray the pain with sufficient depth. In other words, although both have theatrical high-points, they are only intermittently dramatic, not least because, slavishly obeying the novel’s structure rather than finding its own theatrical form, the underlying ideas here are more powerful than the writing of them. Both use bald narration to set up scenes which are then acted out move the story on via simplistic outer characters work via a thriller-like slow tease-out of defining trauma use vivid staging of terrifying pain with added therapeutic input. The central role of a therapist is one of many reasons why, at its weakest, “A Little Life” feels like Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” minus the horses. At moments of utter extremity – there are many – he cries out for her and she appears as comfort. That much is explained by Ana (Nathalie Armin), the only female character, who was his first and only therapist, but who died leaving Jude feeling yet more abandoned and betrayed by someone he trusted. Theater would seem to be an ideal medium for a work centering on the absolute need for a victim of extreme abuse to begin to come to terms with the horror by not just confronting it but by speaking of it. Gradually, the demons that so appallingly haunt him are made manifest by the portrayal of a succession of fiercely abusive men from his past, played with horribly convincing smoothness by Elliot Cowan who fully resists the obvious path of alerting the audience to his own hidden motives. It is the business of “A Little Life” for Jude, against his will, to flesh them out, to reveal the horror that makes him relentlessly self-harm. In the opening scene, it’s immediately clear from the flimsy excuses he gives under attempted questioning that he is nursing dark secrets. The focus is, in every sense, on versatile British screen favorite Norton, and not just because his presence – and his much-published nudity – has caused the limited run to sell out so fast that prior to opening, a transfer to a second West End house was announced.Īs the handsome, bright, notoriously reticent, permanently single lawyer Jude who initially bats away all personal questions, Norton is utterly dedicated. The impressive Thompson fares far better as his character ultimately develops a relationship that takes him far beyond merely being Jude’s affable, “heteronormative” roommate. That means that even the most committed reader gets respite from the litany of sequences of abuse, which so shockingly ruin Jude’s entire life.įor better and worse, the adaptation by Koen Tachelet, Ivo van Hove and Yanagihara herself is extremely faithful to the novel which charts the longstanding friendship of, initially, four men who, on stage, we meet as 30-year-olds: painter JB, played by Omari Douglas (“It’s A Sin” ) architect Malcolm (Zach Wyatt) and actor Willem, played by Luke Thompson (“Bridgerton”), the last of whom shares an apartment with Norton’s Jude (“Happy Valley”, “Grantchester”).įor all the wit and care of the performances, Malcolm and JB register as one-note ciphers because the adaptation cuts them down to little more than plot functionaries. edition, to 814 pages - obviously impossible to read in a single sitting. The absolute relentlessness of that doesn’t reflect the experience of reading Hanya Yanagihara’s million-selling novel since the latter runs, in the U.K. They have endured Jude’s extreme pain being acted out unflinchingly across three hours and 40 minutes, the only break for air being the single intermission. That’s not a luxury afforded to the audience. Played with touching authority by Zubin Varla, he’s speaking of the pain-filled, eight-page, explanatory letter he has read, written by his adoptive son Jude, the play’s central character. “I kept putting the pages down,” says Harold in the play’s closing speech. Secondly, that despite what should be deeply distressing content about life-wrecking child abuse and extreme self-harm with a less than joyous ending, no one was so upset that they were unable to move. Firstly, that there is plenty to admire in the committed, heartfelt performances of the company of eight actors led by an emotionally unsparing James Norton. The alacrity with which the entire audience leapt to its collective feet the second that Ivo van Hove’s production of the trauma-filled “ A Little Life” ended tells us two things.
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