James Norton in A Little Life: harrowing performance in a troubling drama — review

A Little Life

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

As we take our seats for Ivo van Hove’s staging of A Little Life, we seem to be in recognisable territory: gathered around an all-purpose open living space, on which the cast, led by James Norton, are already padding about, swigging beers, joking with one another.

But in fact, we soon realise, we are trapped in one man’s deeply traumatised psyche. There’s been a lot of talk about Norton’s onstage nudity, but it’s his naked emotional performance that is most striking — and most distressing. It’s a superb performance in a deeply troubling show.

Norton plays Jude, the enigmatic central character of Hanya Yanagihara’s 2015 novel. We first meet him, along with his three college buddies, Willem (Luke Thompson), Malcolm (Zach Wyatt) and JB (Omari Douglas), as they are starting out, young and hopeful in New York. But we gradually learn what sets Jude apart from his friends. Hideous childhood abuse has left him physically scarred and emotionally damaged. The great tragedy in Yanagihara’s novel is that no one — his friends, his adoptive father Harold, his doctor — can save him, because no matter how much they love and care for him, he believes himself to be fundamentally unlovable.

On stage, Van Hove and co-adaptor Koen Tachelet invite you into that experience. Jan Versweyveld’s set is fringed with pockets of normal life: there’s a kitchen unit and little workstations where Jude’s friends go about their business. But as they get on with designing buildings, creating art, finding remedies, Norton’s Jude remains centre stage, his present constantly haunted by his history. Past and present co-exist here as Elliot Cowan, representing all Jude’s abusers, regularly invades the space and hauls him back to those horrors.

To alleviate the pain, Jude cuts himself repeatedly in scenes that are near unbearable. Watching on, we feel as helpless as his friends, though unlike them, we have been given some insight into why he does it. We can see that his body, for him, has become associated with trauma and disgust. The moments of nudity are forced on him, leaving him painfully vulnerable.

Running through Van Hove’s production is the fundamental importance of love — parental, sexual or friendly — and a fierce indictment of the abuse of it. The damage done by the betrayal of parental care is particularly stark. Jude is abandoned by his parents, abused by those in loco parentis, rented out by a paedophile masquerading as a father/friend and horrifically raped by a supposed doctor. The story’s redemptive streak lies in the love of his friends — his chosen family — and their repeated efforts to help him.

Onstage this tug of war between dark and light is symbolised physically. We see the treacherous Brother Luke promising little Jude a home at the same time as, nearby, Harold is prepping food for the adoption celebrations. Jude’s long-dead social worker, Ana (Nathalie Armin), haunts him as a voice of good counsel. Horror is counterbalanced by recurring, ritualistic images of tenderness, such as the friends repeatedly carrying him to a hospital bed.

There’s great expressionist use of the set and music too: background videos of New York distort as Jude reaches breaking point and the live music (designed by Eric Sleichim) scrapes and scratches.

And yet. There’s something here that is deeply unsettling. There are major problems translating the novel to stage that Van Hove has not been able to surmount, and issues within it are amplified. Without the slow evolution of the 700-page narrative, the story becomes a relentless pile-up of pain and physical suffering. The nature of the source material means that it doesn’t work like a drama, drawing you in emotionally through dialogue, plot and action. Characters remain sketchy, underdeveloped and lack interiority, obliged to tell us salient details about their lives. Given their counterbalancing role in the story, this is critical.

Most significantly, even Jude becomes little more than his trauma: despite being inside his experience, we don’t really know him. As the abuse and self-harm mount up, this becomes very disturbing; it feels as if we are not meeting him as a person, just watching him being obliterated. So the empathetic impulse to understand the enduring legacy of trauma inadvertently undermines the scale of what is being destroyed: a person with all their richness, depth and potential. His ordeals and self-harm become a grisly spectacle. Even the joy of his relationship with Willem feels clipped, undernourished, its abrupt loss a narrative twist to destroy Jude still further.

What’s not in doubt is the quality and commitment of the performances. There’s a real warmth, camaraderie and tenderness between the friends, while Zubin Varla brings a wealth of quiet kindness to Harold. And Norton is astonishing as Jude, switching in a moment from eager, hopeful child to damaged, guarded adult and finally to empty husk. His honesty and vulnerability are exemplary, his physical endurance staggering.

★★★☆☆

To June 18, then July 4-August 5 at the Savoy Theatre, London, alittlelifeplay.com

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy

Apollo Theatre, London

Pain and love fight it out too in For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, Ryan Calais Cameron’s beautiful meditation on black masculinity (first shown at the tiny New Diorama Theatre then the Royal Court). Again the focus is men, mental health and male friendship. It takes the rough guise of a support meeting, with six black British men working through the histories that have made them who they are. That might sound corny, but Cameron’s script is witty and moving, and delivered with terrific, eloquent physicality by the six-strong ensemble.

Named after different hues of black — Onyx (Mark Akintimehin), Pitch (Emmanuel Akwafo), Jet (Nnabiko Ejimofor), Sable (Darragh Hand), Obsidian (Aruna Jalloh), Midnight (Kaine Lawrence) — the characters take turns to step forward and confide. They talk about school and sex, family and fathers, microaggressions and major traumas. Onyx’s father died rather than seek treatment for his prostate cancer; Sable hides his own insecurities behind his pulling power. We hear of playground encounters with racism; pressures to act strong; the lurking shadows of depression and suicide. But it’s all handled with a deceptively light touch and great warmth and humanity.

When words run out, song and dance take over and they launch into scintillating choreography (by Theophilus O Bailey), firing up the audience. But what really makes this show is their vulnerability, the deft expression of that through movement and subtle body language, and the celebration of the power of mutual support. Whenever one man speaks, the others quietly react: tilting on their chairs, exchanging silent glances. It’s a tender, joyous show: one that doesn’t take itself too seriously and so makes its serious point powerfully. A very welcome arrival in the West End.

★★★★★

To May 18, theapollotheatre.co.uk