Current preoccupation with use of terms such as abuse and trauma to describe behaviours that are merely insensitive is ruthlessly exposed in adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s novel
April 5, 2023 12:34
A Little Life
Harold Pinter Theatre | ★★★✩✩
As a measure of how faithful this Ivo van Hove-directed adaptation is of Hanya Yanagihara’s famous Booker-nominated novel, you could do worse than check if the conflict begat by the original has migrated from the page to the stage.
Is this torture porn dressed up as art? Or does the fathom-deep suffering experienced by this work’s central character, Jude, a New York public prosecutor (admirably underplayed by James Norton with an inscrutable charisma), necessarily expose what the word “abuse” actually means when inserted into newspaper headlines.
James Norton and Luke Thompson (Jan Versweyveld)
And so yes, on that level this show is indeed faithful to the original. There will be admirers and haters, though if the bestseller is anything to go by, plus the already extended West End run, there are many more fans than detractors.
Hove’s typically stylish stage production, which is located and bookended with slow-mo film projections of wealthy New York streets, also replicates the sense of mystery surrounding Jude’s past.
Not even his college friends know what causes his sudden bouts of pain, or why he moves with a limp and sometimes uses a wheelchair.
One of the friends is JB (Omari Douglas), an artist for whom the group of friends is a subject to be painted. Willem (Luke Thompson) is an actor and Malcolm (Zach Wyatt) an architect.
These are beautifully acted beautiful people with everything going for them but for the question mark hanging over Jude. It takes nearly all the production’s four hours for that punctuation to be answered fully, though rarely does time drag.
Nathalie Armin and James Norton (Jan Versweyveld)
