Review: THE FEAR OF 13, Donmar Warehouse

On paper Adrien Brody’s West End debut has all the ingredients for a soul nourishing ode to freedom: A true story of a falsely imprisoned Death Row convict helmed by Justin Martin, the director behind mega hit Prima Facie. Brody, the youngest actor to win a Best Actor Oscar is in the glossy spotlight. It sold out in seconds. Why does it feel so flaccid?

Brody is Nick Yarris, a juvenile drug addict whose plan to lie about a murder he has nothing to do with to wriggle out of a minor crime backfired catastrophically. Instead of granting him freedom he lands on Death Row. We see him through the eyes of Jackie Schaffer, a social worker who becomes instrumental in proving his innocence with DNA evidence. Their relationship blossoms but bureaucratic burdens anchor their romance to an increasingly hopeless reality.

Documentary theatre is usually polarised between a commitment to truth and duty to drama: real life is rarely so exciting that it can simply translate onto the stage, the writer must work their magic and conjure depth beyond the surface.

You can detect that American playwright Lindsey Ferrentino aims to refract the narrative in on itself as a postmodern meditation on the nature of storytelling: who gets to tell their story and who will listen? But it feels tackily stuck on rather than organically garnered. Brody practically winks at the audience every time Yarris divulges that he’s “always been good at telling stories.”

The result is a show that can only tell you about how precious life is but cannot show you. It all washes over you in a slightly saccharine wave of American optimism. Though Martin’s direction has a symphonic quality, scenes self-consciously criss-crossing in the fray, you can imagine the documentary it is based on hitting harder.

Miriam Buether’s set stuffs the audience into every nook and cranny. Yarris’ pale tiled cell is the stage. Audience flanking on all sides. On the one hand it's claustrophobic. On the other I suspect the Donmar want to cram in paying punters to see Brody in the flesh. I don’t blame them. But even he can’t find the play’s centre of theatrical gravity.

Brody plays Yarris as a lost child in the supermarket, teeming with adolescent jitters, eyes searching and yearning for warmth. Yarris’ hope for freedom gently dissipates into darkness. His fracturing desolation ought to shatter your heart. But there is Brody, still the confused juvenile searching for mummy.

A lesson in all this: No matter how fascinating the story, not everything deserves theatrical treatment. The Fear of 13 is about the importance of storytelling, but telling a good story is more important, and in the right form. Not everything deserves an on-stage treatment.

The Fear of 13 plays at the Donmar Warehouse until 30 November

Photo Credits: Manuel Harlan

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