Writer: Lindsey Ferrentino
Director: Justin Martin
Oscar winner Adrien Brody lives up to his reputation with a captivating portrayal of Nick Yarris, a man wrongly imprisoned on death row for 22 years for a murder he did not commit. Amongst a multitalented cast, Yarris’ story is told in captivating sequences on the Donmar stage with heart-breaking simplicity.
It’s a bold splash for Tim Sheader’s inaugural production in his new role as artistic director, and it’s surprisingly funny for a show about death row. Lindsey Ferrentino’s text adds punches of humour to Yarris’ pacey first-person account. Balanced with the despair of the story, the result is profoundly moving, and Brody carries it off without a hitch.
The balcony structure of the Donmar lends well to the prison setting, with plastic chairs and stark lighting in Miriam Buether’s set. It is not lost on the audience that we, too, are stuck in Yarris’ cell as we hear his story. The prison doors slam, there are surveillance cameras in every corner, and there are often glimpses of the outside world on the other side of the two-way glass.
It’s not a linear retelling; we get glimpses of the other characters in Yarris’ life. Nana Mensah is a standout as Jackie Schaffer, a woman inspired to visit death row inmates who ends up embarking on a doomed romance with Yarris. There is the painful hope for Yarris’ release emanating from behind the two-way glass as Jackie makes phone calls from the domesticity of her kitchen, peeks of which we only see sporadically.
The cast excels as they rotate as a series of prison guards, fellow inmates, lawyers and judges that circle Yarris in his entrapment. It’s an excellent choice to opt for the intimate vocal arrangements created by the cast rather than a score (DJ Walde’s work). A harmonic version of a Hozier song becomes an agonising soundtrack to Yarris and Jackie’s wedding, for example, becoming profoundly sad as they are not allowed to touch.
Exciting and funny titbits keep the energy up amongst the hopelessness of the wrongful imprisonment. Yarris’ month-long escape from death row, his time in a Florida prison with Ted Bundy, and a moving tale of two inmates in love committing crimes to be imprisoned together. Even at almost two hours with no interval, and with all this heavy content, there is something so engaging about James Martin’s direction that the production doesn’t feel the weight of the runtime at all.
Ferrentino’s text starts and ends on ‘time’, on its ability to flash by and insufferably drag out. By the end of the two hours, it’s a very simple DNA test that instantly exonerates Yarris, and time slows to allow space for a heart-breaking monologue about Yarris’ childhood trauma, which Brody embodies with captivating clarity as the perfect emotional punch for the end.
It’s a powerhouse of a performance and a must-see show about a 22-year injustice.
Runs until 30 November 2024
