21 October 2024
The first play in Timothy Sheader’s first season in charge of the Donmar Warehouse after running Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is an absolute corker.
As Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Death Row in a Pennsylvania prison after being convicted of murder and rape, Oscar-winner Adrien Brody makes a charismatic intense, soul-baring West End debut. Shaggy haired, lean as a whippet and charmingly wolfish, Brody sprinkles stardust by the bucketload. Together with John Lithgow in Giant at the Royal Court, these two US stars are delivering the finest acting on the West End stage at the moment. Expect award nominations to shower down on them both.
Miriam Buether’s set is the other standout star of Justin Martin’s forensically sharp production (Justin also directed the West End production of Prima Facie), trapping the first row of the audience between an encircling catwalk. A long window behind alternately reveals a prison corridor and the home kitchen of prison visitor Jackie Schaffer (Nana Mensah), who develops a friendship with Yarris.
With only experience of short film and TV takes, many screen actors are rightly frightened of live stage work. Mr Brody, however, is a master storyteller who seduced me with his doe-eyed sincerity and held me transfixed in the palm of his hand.
A fabulously assured debut production for Mr Sheader’s tenure. Tickets are rightly as rare as hen’s teeth.
