A Little Life review – James Norton a force of nature in disturbing deep dive into complex gay male relationships

You know the ‘This Is Fine’ meme? In which a comic book dog cheerfully declares of his imminent incineration: “This is fine”? Jude, main character in A Little Life, a play based on the novel by Hanya Yanagihara, is like that dog. At first, anyway.

But Jude, a victim of childhood sex slavery, is not fine. Where the meme pokes fun at the casualness of tragedy – of the psychologically relentless century in which we’re living and the poverty of empathy it paralyses us with – A Little Life obliterates that normalisation. It slaps theatregoers around the face with their delusion. To the point that some, understandably, scream “trauma porn!” Even the title, taken from a piece of dialogue (“you have to show a little life”) is horrifying once you know the full context.

Thus far, we’re only talking about the words on the page. The staging here is daring – side note: tabloid headlines about the nudity are so weirdly 90s – and sometimes self-indulgent. A piercing, Jaws-like string section isn’t always subtle. The three-hour-20-minute running time is simply unnecessary. Albeit imaginably cut of the fat of the 814-page book, even at that length. (It’s also free of the book cover‘s tawdry emotional cheapness, thank goodness).

The creative decisions are extreme enough, anyway, to justify the most comprehensive trigger warning Attitude’s ever read; an entire webpage. (“This production includes strong language, nudity, sexual violence, physical and emotional abuse, self-harm, and suicide,” it states.)

But far-fetched? Fantastical? Hardly. Only last week, 21 people were convicted in the largest-ever child sex abuse investigation in West Midlands Police history. Det Ch Supt Paul Drover called the offences (as per the BBC) “some of the most shocking abuse that I’ve seen in my career.” As such, the play’s intensity makes a compelling case against sanitising stories of abuse. It prompts questions like: does softening such stories lead to the denial of truth? Or the avoidance of truth? Does such avoidance enable abusers?

It’s self-consciously controversial territory. Who better to lead a company through those choppy waters than one of the UK’s most feted actors: Happy Valley’s James Norton? If you’re familiar with that breath-taking funeral scene in SE2 of the BBC One crime drama, you already know he’s a force of nature. There’s a forcefulness here, too. An overwhelming energy. An overwhelming expense of energy: shouting, screaming, running around. Just watching him is exhausting. Norton must sustain this several times a week for five months, as per a Savoy Theatre transfer in July. 

But there’s not a hint of the cold, calculated Tommy Lee Royce to be found. Which is a relief. There’s always more than a flicker of warmth to Jude, a successful lawyer living in New York City. Even if he’s enduring psychological torture for much of the play’s running time. Norton barely stops for breath, taking us on deep dive into Jude’s psyche and past, frequently stepping in and out of the guise of an innocent child for flashbacks. It’s a far-ranging performance of deteriorating mental health, full of light and shade, peaks and troughs. It reminded me of Anamaria Marinca’s bravura performance in The Young Vic’s 2009 production of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (a huge compliment), about a deeply depressed woman whose state of mind causes her to wake at 4:48 every morning.

The story’s fixation on Jude comes at a cost. While all superb, the supporting actors barely get a look in. It’s a Sin‘s Omari Douglas is impactful as Jude’s best friend JB: an acidic artist reckoning with his own decline. He steals the show in the first half, and actually does all the heavy lifting in the crucial first scene, in which we meet the rest of Jude’s inner circle and are drawn in by their harmonious, sitcom-like casting: eventual lover Willem (Luke Thompson, muted at first, but all guns blazing later) and token straight friend Malcolm (Zach Wyatt, a much-needed conduit of happiness and humour). What little we get of their chemistry is lovely… But let’s not go too far. The tote bags in the foyer, brandishing the guys’ names like Sex and the City merch, are grotesque.

It’s also a crying shame we don’t get a deeper in sight into Ana, the lone female character and Jude’s late therapist who mentally revisits him in times of crisis. That said, you have to applaud Yanagihara’s insight into complex male relationships – sexual, romantic, platonic, abusive, all of the above. To that end, Yanagihara has addressed critics of her right to tell the stories of gay men, even though she’s a woman, by recently telling The Guardian: “It’s very dangerous. I have the right to write about whatever I want. The only thing a reader can judge is whether I have done so well or not.”

Elliot Cowan is the second most valuable player, put through his paces as three separate villains who abuse Jude at different stages in his life. Each is completely different from the last in voice and body language, and yet their cold energies are eerily of the same church, like three members of the same dark family. Cowan’s arresting presence as Brother Luke – the most attractive and hip-looking monk you’ll ever see, which is just wrong – burrows into your brain.

Elsewhere, Zubin Varla as Harold, Jude’s law professor-turned-adopted dad, is a wild card. With his debonair demeanour and well-to-do accent, he’s a touch ‘Bond villain’ and flies close to the wind of pretension. I was initially confused as to whether he was a hero or villain in the story. But by the unbearable finale, his performance and the play in general surge with enough devastating clarity as to prompt murmurs of awe in the stalls.

Awe you could hear and see, actually, as some audience members were sat in rows at the back of the stage. (Including one man who was smacked gum like a cow.) Their emotional reactions guided everyone else’s, which was fascinating.

There’s little to be enjoyed here, but a lot to be remembered.

4/5

A Little Life is playing now at the Harold Pinter Theatre.