Review: A LITTLE LIFE, Harold Pinter Theatre

Content Warning: This review contains references to self-harm and includes spoilers

A Little Life is a controversial novel. Published in 2015, it became an instant bestseller, but its subject matter attracted as much praise as it did criticism. It follows the lives of four friends navigating life from youth to maturity, focusing specifically on one of them.

Surrounded by Willem, Malcolm, and JB, Jude is a reserved, enigmatic presence that eludes his best mates as well as the reader. With flashbacks, we find out the trauma that shaped him. Hanya Yanagihara doesn't spare any details. The book is graphic, horrible, almost traumatising in its accounts of violence and abuse. At over 800 pages, reading it is an experience.

Everybody rejected the television adaptation that Yanagihara wrote, but Ivo van Hove decided that he could condense the tome into a swift four hours of stage traffic. The Dutch iteration premiered in Amsterdam in 2018 and then visited the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year. A revision and an English translation later (by Koen Tachelet, Ivo van Hove, and Hanya Yanagihara herself), it landed in the West End after a trial in Richmond. Running at three hours and 40 minutes with a mere interval, the production is also graphic, horrible, almost traumatising. Its list of trigger warnings is long and legitimate.

The transfer features a cast that can only be described as star-studded: Happy Valley baddie James Norton is Jude, Bridgerton's eldest brother Luke Thompson is Willem, It's a Sin's Omari Douglas is JB, and The Witcher's Zach Wyatt is Malcolm. They're joined by Elliot Cowan, newly-minted Olivier Award winner Zubin Varla, Nathalie Armin, and Emilio Doorgasingh. These are gargantuan performances, including a torturous tour de force by Norton, who's closely followed by his supporting actors. It's a heady mix for a heavy theme: trauma porn diluted with dreadful misery.

Some will say the show - very much like the story - is unnecessarily cruel and convoluted. One could argue that so is life. Yanagihara spins an intricate yarn, spending chapters building and strengthening the bond between the characters. Page after page detail the fallout of certain events, how they affect the timeline and hurt those involved. Van Hove does an excellent job at summarising it, but there's a feeling that everything happens too quickly. We're not allowed to pause and ponder on the violence we witness because the next scene is barging in.

The events don't have time to breathe and hit the audience like they should because the company bestow them at an impetuous speed due to obvious timing reasons. A lot is sensibly omitted - from entire figures to situations that only solidify the small details - but one feels the topics shown are left underanalysed. The script ambles between dialogue, narrative, and inner monologue, swiftly going from one to the next with Shakespearean ambition. It largely works, but comes off as a forced artifice used to slide the story along painlessly. Poetic peaks follow clipped exposition while the actors address the crowd like a narrator would the reader.

We watch as Jude disintegrates. His ritualistic cutting creates pools of blood that are pragmatically and systematically mopped up. Norton's portrayal is enormous. A character burdened with independence, the actor delivers a man shackled by a refusal to accept kindness as an option and a jarring inability to cope healthily. Abused and tortured from a young age, made to prostitute himself by a monk, and then nearly killed, he pushes away those who love him as an adult, locking them out with heart-wrenching physicality. Norton is haunted by the presence of Brother Luke and Doctor Traylor (played by Cowan alongside Jude's sadistic partner Caleb in a brilliant stroke of triple casting).

Timelines intersect and converse in van Hove's expressionist take while the characters all exist in their own bubbles on Jan Versweyveld's set. With seating at the back of the stage, the Harold Pinter transforms into a traverse, creating a voyeuristic atmosphere. An all-female string quartet give an impression of gender balance against the male-heavy list of names and accompany much of the action, manipulating its reception and hiking up the tension. This can feel gimmicky at times, considering the hasty pace of the accounts, but it's a delicate touch in a harsh landscape.

Projections on either side of the stage display views of the streets of New York as if we were on a slow-motion stroll. They're largely unnecessary (and even failed briefly during our press performance) but we've grown to attach this kind of visuals to van Hove's style, so we might need to come to terms with them. While they add very little overall, they complement Jude's self-harm by fuzzing up into static noise. Van Hove warns the public of these gruesome moments by having Norton slowly walk up the central porcelain sink, grab the baggie of blades and bandages, and then sit on the floor to unwrap his forearms. It's cyclical and expected, but always shocking.

The other characters are mainly oblivious to Jude's exploits, which was the case in the original story too but seems exacerbated here by the fact that most of his friends aren't as fleshed out and developed. Thompson's Willem is a passionate, full-bodied presence on stage. He cares about Jude deeply but respects his boundaries excessively, especially in the first act. He stands on the sidelines of Jude's pain before finally confessing his feelings. He delivers a sensitive performance, and one that we wish was matched with as much structure as Yanagihara gave him. JB and Malcolm are regrettably given smaller roles in Jude's life, so Douglas and Wyatt become extremely secondary here.

It was always going to be a feat to transpose the relationships between Jude and Harold and Jude and Andy. The team manage only to scrape the surface of them. Varla gives a down-to-earth and rational air to the once-mentor-then-father, while Doorgasingh is the understanding doctor who lets Jude off the hook and makes Willem feel responsible. Cowan is the real revelation: a shapeshifter as the villainous trio. He has the audience rage at the sight of Brother Luke's overt grooming, makes them want to look away as Caleb mistreats Jude and cower under Traylor's imposing threats.

Seeing Ana, Jude's only social worker, in the line-up was a surprise. A rather minor (but very important!) part in the novel, here she acts as a sort of conscience for Jude and helps to run the narrative alongside Varla almost as a classic literary device. Whenever Armin enters Norton's space, he opens up and reveals his fears while she provides solace, warning, or advice.

The play it's certain to divide both audiences and critics: its effect ultimately depends on what one looks for. It's only a shadow of the book, but, realistically, this is probably the best adaptation fans and sceptics will get.

A Little Life runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 18 June and then at the Savoy Theatre from 4 July to 5 August.

Photo Credit: Jan Versweyveld

Read our review of A Little Life at 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe here.