A Little Life

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Little Life Mert Dilek A LITTLE LIFE. Adapted for the stage by Koen Tachelet. Directed by Ivo van Hove. International Theater Amsterdam, Netherlands. April 18, 2019. Since its publication in 2015, Hanya Yanagihara’s novel A Little Life has beguiled and challenged readers all over the world with its story of an unspeakable [End Page 102] trauma leavened with life-affirming compassion. The acclaimed Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s stage adaptation of the novel, written and performed in Dutch, deftly rose to the challenge of capturing the sprawling density of this psychological odyssey, as it was both loyal to the narrative intricacy of its source text and consistently imaginative in how it enriched its many layers. Thoughtful embodiments of the novel’s key episodes, propped by a clinically sharp approach to storytelling, allowed van Hove’s production to foreground and make concrete the visceral components of Yanagihara’s work. Click for larger view View full resolution Maarten Heijmans (Willem), Ramsey Nasr (Jude), and Marieke Heebink (Ana) in A Little Life. (Photo: Jan Versweyveld.) On the face of it, the 700-odd pages of A Little Life chronicle the intersecting lives of four friends from college: the actor Willem, the architect Malcolm, the artist JB, and the lawyer Jude. But the central focus remains on Jude, whose tragic childhood of abuse and suffering turns out to have left an indelible imprint on his adult life. Koen Tachelet’s adapted script and van Hove’s staging, although running to over four hours, economically replicated the novel’s plot, tonal swerves, and rhythmic modulations, with a fine sense of what to jettison and what to dwell upon. Just as Yanagihara’s novel begins in a lighthearted key, its attention dispersed evenly across the four friends, the play’s opening depicted their relationships in rather innocuous ways, showing them lounging together and dancing under strobe lights. The novel’s third chapter, hinting for the first time at its interest in zooming in on Jude by way of his self-destructive habits, had its onstage counterpart twenty minutes into the production: after the first spurt of blood coming from Jude’s forearm, the gentle conviviality of the opening moments could hardly be recovered. Jan Versweyveld’s design compartmentalized the novel’s primary locations across the ITA’s large stage, assigning a distinct but spare corner to each with an evocative set of props. The production’s scenic minimalism was conveyed particularly through the empty center stage; the locational non-specificity of this sizable area, which looked like a scar tissue, allowed it to function as a psychological realm. Raked seating on upstage center accommodated an audience of about 180, who could be seen clearly by those in the 550-seat auditorium: such mirroring enhanced the audience’s awareness of one another’s disturbed reactions to certain moments. The stage was bracketed by two sidewalls upon which were projected continuous, slow-motion shots of New York streets. Besides making much of the setting explicit, these projections infused the play with a sense of interminable, almost doom-driven, motion. [End Page 103] Click for larger view View full resolution Ramsey Nasr (Jude) and Hans Kesting (Brother Luke/Dr. Traylor/Caleb) in A Little Life. (Photo: Jan Versweyveld.) An overwhelming sense of continuity was pervasive, seamlessly stringing together a great number of scenes taking place in different locations, time periods, and theatrical modes. This was especially powerful in those moments when an event in the present-day timeline referred to or triggered a memory from Jude’s past. This intense interweaving of Jude’s extended flashbacks with scenes from his present often turned the stage into an embodiment of his tormented psyche. Live music from a string quartet provided a feverish accompaniment to many of these temporally fluid episodes. Ramsey Nasr’s agile physicality allowed him to switch between different periods of Jude’s life with ease and finesse: whether Jude was a naïve child or a weary adult, Nasr’s performance conveyed his character’s changing features—facial, bodily, and psychological—in subtle but effective ways. Even though scenes of Jude’s professional life were absent from the play, he always wore...