BWith this adventurous feat, the Almeida proves once again that it is indispensable. Eline Arbo’s production of Annie Ernaux’s The YearS – The years – breathes new life into the difficult relationship between page and stage, showing that adaptation can be more than just piggybacking, but a revelation. First seen two years ago at Het Nationale Theater in The Hague and now heard in an English version by Stephanie Bain, Arbo’s reinterpretation splits open an important piece of literature and lets its meaning shine.
Ernaux, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2022, created a new hybrid of memoir and history with her 2008 book: an account of a life – her own – and the life of France, spanning 1941 to 2006, weaving together intimate anecdotes and public events, political changes and private turmoil. This was no confessional banter: though it was personal, it was also collective; the narrator is a “we,” not an “I.” Most strikingly for a writer from the land of Proust, The years took apart the idea of memory.
One of Ernaux’s truths is that we become strangers to our former selves. This is brilliantly embodied in Arbo’s production, in which the main character is played by five different actors, varying in shape, size, skin colour, age, accent, voice pitch and facial cast. Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner are superb – and always surprising.
Findlay, who I’ve come to appreciate most (a lot) for her witty innuendo, unleashes a meaty ferocity as she takes on the role of a raging toddler. Rose-Bremner sprints past her memorable RSC performance, beaming. Hamnet: Her peachy voice alone should guarantee her a major role in any new musical.
Parlez-Moi d’Amour threads the plot with salaciousness, yet most of the sexual encounters are more overt, the aftermath more explosive, sometimes brutal. A scene in which the powerful Garai sweats and struggles through an offstage abortion – all the more horrific for being so fiery – became famous before press night for causing men to leave the room, some say fainting. Equally remarkable is Mohindra’s thrilling discovery of masturbation, which involves her in an extended acrobatic intercourse with a table. Meanwhile, McKee reveals an enormous talent for comedy. Spinning a chair in one hand, she elegantly reflects on her mature passion for a younger lover: it’s as if she’s casually undressing him.
World events—the Algerian War, the May 1968 demonstrations—are narrated, not staged. As are some private moments. Ernaux unfolds her narrative through a series of photographs. Here, a white sheet (crumpled and cradled in one place to create a baby) serves as a backdrop against which the women pose at irregular intervals. Descriptions of the resulting snapshots are read and performed. McKee, who must demonstrate “an absence of desire to please,” squints her eyes so that her face becomes a mask of noncompliance. You might think the expression is too small to be noticed in the theater. But these actors make everything count.
It is not difficult to understand why Pericles is rarely performed: I reckon I’ve seen about seven performances. It’s thought to be only partly Shakespearean – George Wilkins is usually blamed for the worst bits – but the plot races along: death at sea, incest, tyranny, pirates, jerky movements with disturbing gaps. Which would be less bad if it were more fully dramatized. As it is, there’s more plot description than real development. There’s no central pulse.
That makes it ripe for adoption by directors with concepts. That and the fact that, given mass migration and exile, some of its most unlikely elements seem like prophecy. About 20 years ago, a production by Cardboard Citizens, a troupe specialising in theatre for and with the homeless, imagined the characters as asylum seekers sent across the ocean in boxes.
In her directorial debut at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she has just finished her first year as co-director, Tamara Harvey allows none of this. No updating, no emphasis on modern echoes. Her production emphasises the fairy-tale wonders and absurdities of the play and spices it up with humour. The result, after a slow start, is appealing but not urgent.
after newsletter campaign
Jonathan Fensom’s set has thick ropes hanging from the back of the stage and trailing overhead. The effect is part nautical, part that of an exclusive gym. We could be trapped in a wonderful Conrad Shawcross sculpture. Under Elinor Peregrin’s musical direction, gusts of brass, woodwind and percussion permeate the action; the characters move with trance-like slowness. Ryan Day’s lighting is warm; Kinnetia Isidore’s costumes are in bright pinks, purples and azure: in a sharp touch, a couple’s future harmony is suggested by their almost matching, gold-trimmed royal blue costumes.
The verses, as irregular as the action, are delivered particularly well by Alfred Enoch, who makes Pericles innocent, open and guileless without ever making him seem like a weakling. In a telling departure, the role of the narrator, traditionally a grumpy old fellow, is given to Rachelle Diedericks’s delicately frank, direct Marina, the lost daughter who regains her voice. Christian Patterson heats things up as a comic, rumbling-voiced Simonides.
I consider this to be Shakespeare’s most insect-rich play: not because of the mention of caterpillars and fireflies, but because of the disarming line, reminiscent of the tenderhearted Marina: “I trod on a worm against my will, / Yet I wept for him.” Perhaps not enough to make the play the focus of Shakespeare scholarship, but enough to pique curiosity.
Star ratings (out of five)
The years ★★★★★
Pericles ★★★
-
The years is at Almeida, London until 31 August
-
Pericles is at the Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon until 21 September
