You ask too much of life

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

The Years : The Harold Pinter Theatre 

This is one I'd not heard of until it won the Olivier awards for Best Director and Best Supporting Actress - and somehow, completely coincidentally, adverts started appearing telling me it had been extended and I thought, "Why not - what's the worst that can happen?". And then I read about all the men fainting during the performance due to the harrowing description of an abortion. Oh...

The play follows one woman, Annie, from childhood during the Second World War through to grandmotherhood in the new millenium, zooming in on various key events across her life and considering how past, present and future are all intertwined. And, because Annie is French, it seems like she spends a LOT of her life thinking about sex.

There are five actors used throughout the play to represent Annie at various ages and they also become other characters as required - in ascending order of age they are Harmony Rose-Brewster, Anjli Mohindra, Romola Garai, Gina McKee and Deborah Findlay and they all do a good job at representing Annie at her particular stage of life.

And some of the acting involved is very serious indeed - the stand-outs for me were Anjli describing her (unsatisfactory) loss of virginity, Romola describing her illegal abortion and Gina telling us far more than we needed to know about her much younger lover. And the abortion description is indeed pretty graphic, but I wasn't sure I really thought that it would make people faint - but it turns out it does, because halfway through, the house lights come up and some random guy walks on stage to announce that it's stopping because a member of the audience requires attention. I have to admit I found it disturbing, but in no more than a "well, I wasn't expecting it to be fun" kinda way. Perversely, part of me enjoyed the fact that it had to be stopped to tend to someone with more delicate sensitivities than me - I still don't understand how that happened, but I guess everyone is different.  

There is plenty about the play that's well written - the language is often very beautiful and the use of only five actors (who are often all on stage together) to represent both specific and generic characters is well done. It also makes you think - I believe you're supposed to treat it as though all the Annies exist at all times (they refer to themselves as "we") and their shared experience affects their behaviour and how they remember it. There's also a nice theme of (often very messy) sheets which runs throughout the play and links up (surprisingly tidily) at the end. 

But...

...it's certainly not perfect. There were a load of strange musical interludes for no obvious reasons (except for the times they were clearly needed to allow the actors to tidy up the mess they'd made) - they were well done being both played and sung by the actors, but they added absolutely nothing to the play. I also thought the overall theme of the play was a bit stereotypical in a "can she really have it all?" kinda way - without really offering any answers. Additionally, the male characters weren't particularly well written for me - although it was interesting that a decision was made to give Annie two sons, whereas I think the presence of at least one daughter would have been more interesting. Another interesting decision made was not to include childbirth as one of the key scenes in Annie's life - it feels like it would be a key moment in most mothers' lives.

Getting even more subjective, understandably a lot of the play didn't feel massively relevant to me - it doesn't get marked down as a result, but it was obviously less personally engaging, particularly when there's no "plot" or twists to speak of. I also didn't think it was nearly as funny as many other people in the audience did - but that's often the case because I'm a grumpy old man. 

One final comment, which is nothing to do with the play but it was SUPER annoying that three people arrived ten minutes late to the play only to find that their seats were already occupied, entirely mistakenly, by another three people who were supposed to be sitting in the row in front - what are the chances of that? So the usher made the people in the wrong seats move forward one row so that the late people could take their correct seats - lots of random standing up and sitting down went on. Everyone could have done better there, methinks.

I didn't like this play, but I can see there was a lot to admire about it, particularly the acting and the ambition - however, I really don't see it was as great as all the reviews and awards said. Maybe there was a feeling it would be "betraying the sisterhood" to suggest it wasn't great - or maybe I'm just wrong (that can't be it, surely?). Unfortunately, if you want to find out which one it is, it's just finished - but given the reviews it may well be back again at some point.

Dear England - A very enjoyable night out
Natalie Palamides - A great night at a great venue