The evaluations for the new play A Little Life by James Norton range from two to five stars. The play is an adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s wildly popular and Booker Prize-nominated novel of the same title.
However, the play’s relentless trauma, which includes scenes of self-harm and sexual assault, turned off many critics.
Variety praised Norton’s “committed performance,” while the Financial Times described the play as “deeply unsettling.”
James Norton portrays Jude, the protagonist of A Little Life, a character who self-harms after enduring unremitting childhood abuse.
While his performance was widely praised by critics, many were turned off by the amount of trauma represented on stage over the course of 3 hours and forty minutes.
Neil Norman of the Daily Express gave the program five stars and deemed it “utterly compelling” in his five-star review.
He stated,
“This is industrial strength theater for serious theatergoers.”
In this shattering indictment of paedophilia and the resulting physical and psychological wounds, Norton’s courageous performance makes Jude’s torment seem almost biblical.
After its publication in 2015, the novel by Yanagahira became a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Dua Lipa was one of the novel’s biggest admirers.
In the plot, Jude is comforted by his companions Willem, JB, and Malcolm, portrayed by Luke Thompson, Omari Douglas, and Zach Wyatt, respectively.
However, the play has not been well received by all audiences. Sarah Hemming of the Financial Times awarded the production three stars and praised Norton’s “outstanding performance in a deeply troubling show.”
She wrote,
“Van Hove has not been able to overcome significant obstacles in adapting the novel for the stage, and the novel’s issues are exacerbated.”
“Without the gradual development of the 700-page narrative, the tale devolves into a never-ending accumulation of pain and physical suffering.
Due to the nature of the source material, it does not function as a drama, engaging the audience emotionally through dialogue, narrative, and action.
David Benedict of Variety echoed this sentiment, stating that Norton is “utterly dedicated.”
However, he noted that there are no breaks in the audience’s exposure to the unrelenting trauma, as there would be when reading the book.
“The UK edition of the million-selling novel by Hanya Yanagihara has 814 pages, making it impossible to read in one sitting,” he said. “Therefore, even the most dedicated reader receives a respite from the litany of abuse sequences that so shockingly ruin Jude’s entire existence.
“Despite the wit and care of their performances, Malcolm and JB come across as one-note ciphers because the adaptation reduces them to mere plot functionaries,”
iNews’s Fiona Mountford was more impressed, assigning the program four stars.
She stated,
“This is without a doubt the most arduous piece of theater I can recall seeing.” “It’s incredible that Norton can pull off this performance once a day, but to do it twice on matinée days is a feat of endurance that merits some type of bravery award.
“Jan Versweyveld’s versatile set, which suggests a variety of personal and professional spaces, is flanked by two video projection displays that lead us slowly and mesmerizingly through eerie, empty New York streetscapes. When Jude engages in self-injury, the displays become distorted with static. This is relentless, but marvelous.”
In 2022, when it was performed in Edinburgh with English subtitles, the Dutch adaptation of A Little Life received mostly favorable reviews.
Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph gave the West End transfer four stars and said,
“The book has been accused of piling on the anguish, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous here.
“Norton is exceptional at evoking hidden depths, such as the impassivity he acquired in the exploitative company of a Catholic monk who befriended and then betrayed him.” Norton exposes himself literally and inflicts self-inflicted injury.
“We’ve seen male nudity in the West End before, but never with such a combination of blood, guts, and sexual predation.”
Nick Curtis of the Evening Standard described it as a “superb piece of theatre… staged with consummate skill,” while Luke Jones of the Daily Mail described it as “brutally miserable, but somehow also mercifully entertaining.”
However, Clive Davis of the New York Times was considerably less enthusiastic, giving the show only two stars.
“What remains when the gore and rumors about Norton’s private regions are removed? He stated that the film was a second-rate melodrama with a sophisticated presentation.
“The performances are skillful. Norton presents us with a fragmented psyche. Unavoidably, the play can only provide a summary of a 700-page novel.”
The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar gave the performance three stars, stating,
“It is staged with the uttermost intelligence. However, despite its sophistication and piercing qualities, it is an unsettling production.
“Whereas Yanagihara’s novel followed the trajectories of Jude’s friends to paint a compelling picture of their love for Jude, here we only see flashes of this camaraderie and warmth, making the story less textured and more relentlessly focused on abuse and its legacy.”
James Norton is best known for his roles in McMafia and Happy Valley, in which he portrayed Tommy Lee Royce, police sergeant Catherine Cawood’s adversary.
The Independent’s Alice Saville dissented about Norton’s performance in her two-star review.
She stated,
“Somehow Norton fails to convey Jude’s inner life or do enough to make the reader desperately root for him.”
“I could feel the sobbing and eye-covering of those around me, and sometimes I did the same myself.”
But I also felt deceived by its unsophisticated and psychologically ignorant abuse narrative.
“This is partially the fault of Van Hove’s icy, clinical, humorless adaptation, but Yanagihara’s novel is primarily to blame.
She stated that the play is “so excruciating to witness that, like Jude, you wish it would end immediately. However, it is an extremely irresponsible and deceptive message.
“Real-world suffering is more complex, interspersed with moments of joy, care, and healing; and recovery is too valuable to abandon.”
As the run of A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre has sold out, it will transfer to the Savoy in July for a five-week extension.
Matt Wolf of the New York Times opined, “The play is beautifully acted but astoundingly gloomy.” “Spectators’ threshold for trauma may be evaluated multiple times. I’m sure mine was.
“You emerge stunned by the overwhelming brutality of the situation, but moved? Based on the performance, absolutely. However, not the play”
Katherine Cowles of the New Statesman stated that watching the play made her experience a “sudden kinship with those poor Facebook moderators, trapped in a windowless room for hours sifting through images of the very worst of human suffering: rape, torture, child abuse, and self-harm.”
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