“The Fear of 13” at Donmar Warehouse
Franco Milazzo in the West End
12 October 2024
“Much-anticipated” is a phrase that is often recklessly bandied about in theatreland. The West End debut of a Hollywood movie star who is more used to staring at green screens than footlights? “Much-anticipated.” A revival of a play that was once raved about by critics now dead, retired, or residing in the blogosphere? “Much-anticipated.” Anything featuring Benedict Cumberbatch? “Much-anticipated.”
Adrien Brody, Aidan Kelly, Michael Fox and Nana Mensah.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
And so we come to one of the hottest tickets this autumn. The Fear of 13 at the Donmar Warehouse sees Adrien Brody make his London theatre debut. The youngest winner of the Best Actor Oscar for his superlative work in 2002’s The Pianist – the true story of a Holocaust survivor – takes on another challenging role: that of Nick Yarris, a death-row inmate convicted for rape and murder and wrongly imprisoned for 22 years.
There is also an air of anticipation above and beyond anything related to the Oscar winner. New artistic director Tim Sheader was determined to make a splash with this inaugural production and getting the Hollywood megastar on board is something of a coup. Brody hasn’t performed on stage since very early in his career and is being paid the standard wage so it’s anyone’s guess exactly what he is getting out of appearing every night in front of just 251 people (and, at the curtain call, at least 251 phone cameras).
This story has already been told through British director David Sington’s 2015 award-nominated documentary and is presented here in the form of a new play written by American playwright Lindsey Ferrentino. Starting in early Eighties Philadelphia, we see Yarris getting into a fight with a police officer and ending up in jail. Efforts to free himself by offering information on a recent homicide serves only to tighten the metaphorical noose: not only is he accused of that crime but ends up being convicted of it and, at the tender age of 21, sentenced to death.
Like the documentary, The Fear of 13 leans heavily on a narration of Yarris’s life (here spoken by Brody) with additional input from Nana Mensah as the prison volunteer Jackie who goes on to marry him. The play takes us from stories of sexual abuse in early childhood and Yarris’s teenage criminal acts and addictions, through to his brutal treatment in the Pennsylvania prison (beatings by guards are seen as commonplace and, at one point, he is confined to silence for two years). His court case is held up as a shocking indictment of the American legal system: no DNA proof, destroyed autopsy material, and a capital punishment handed out based on circumstantial evidence.
The two-hour running time has no interval, but Justin Martin – who directed the brilliant legal drama Prima Facie starring Jodie Comer in the West End and on Broadway – expertly steers us through this travesty of justice. Ferrentino’s muscular script keeps the twists and turns coming with streaks of humour which, if they don’t exactly illuminate the play’s dark tale, offer a welcome relief from the grim reality of it all.
The starkness of Yarris’s plight is, thanks to set designer Miriam Buether’s white prison-cell set and Jon Clark’s harsh lighting, plain for us to see. The immersive air of despair and desperation is haunting with a claustrophobic atmosphere enhanced by having those in the stalls placed mere feet away from the actors and characters occasionally walking among the audience seated downstairs and up in the balcony.
While hearing about Yarris’s life as a whole is engaging and, at times, life-affirming, the dialogue doesn’t pull us in in the same way. The nine-strong ensemble led by Brody do well to flesh out the roles but there’s still a feeling that we are being pulled from pillar to post. The American film actor gives us sincerity in buckets, his wide-eyed face never less than mesmeric, but, until the emotional finale, neither the direction nor the script is strong enough to draw the best out of him.
Although there are some unexpectedly sweet moments – for example, the inmates’ a cappella rendition of The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination” – we yearn to learn even more about what makes Yarris and Jackie tick beyond the obvious context they find themselves in. Separating the man from his journey is not made easy and there’s a nagging sensation that, rather than taking Sington’s narrative-driven documentary as a starting point and then stepping back, Ferrentino has focussed on adapting it for the stage. As well as his “life on the inside”, more about Yarris’s inner life is needed here.
