Theatre Review - The Years
The cast of The Years [Ali Wright]
ELINE Arbo’s extraordinary adaptation of Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux’s 2008 book Les Années (translated by Stephanie Bain) succeeds on many levels.
The Years interweaves the domestic and political to great effect (touching on societal change, consumerism and culture), beautifully realised in Arbo’s spellbinding production.
Ernaux uses “we”, rather than “I” to give the sense of a collective female experience.
This is cleverly exploited by using five different actors, Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner, to tell one woman’s story.
Opening in post-war France and ending in the noughties, each pivotal period in the Frenchwoman’s life begins with a photograph. These begin in childhood and end in her 60s.
The actors stand in front of a white sheet as the snapshot is described and taken. As the sheets become stained with personal experiences they are hung on the back wall – powerful mementos of her past.
The woman’s sexual life is laid bare. We witness her adolescence, gleefully embracing masturbation, followed by a queasy seduction by an older man. An abortion is viscerally but sensitively rendered.
Her work as a teacher, and happy marriage with two children, gradually runs its course as she begins to carve out a career as a writer.
In middle-age the woman experiences an intense affair with a married man. In her 60s, she takes a young lover. These shifts are rendered in vibrant stylised scenes.
It’s beautifully acted by the stellar cast and Rose-Bremner’s musical interludes are stunning. Female solidarity is embraced on and off stage – the performers hold hands when navigating the blackouts.
The Years is the perfect fusion of words and performance and it’s refreshing to see female desire and expression foregrounded in this way.
The hottest ticket in town.
Until August 31