James Norton’s Challenging Little Life

Posted on 7th October 2023

The Corn Hall frequently showcases the best the National Theatre has to offer, and it’s always a treat seeing what London is enjoying, presented in a way that faithfully captures the theatrical experience.  Filmed at the Savoy Theatre, A Little Life is a little different, however, and much closer to a theatre/film hybrid, drawing the viewer into the drama with intimate camerawork in a way that serves to emphasise its devastating subject matter.  

Based on Hanya Yanagihara’s bestselling novel about sexual abuse and self-harm, Ivon Hove’s stage adaptation is an understandably challenging experience. Having distilled a 700 page novel into a play, the focus here is almost exclusively on Jude. His friends Willem, JB and Malcolm are relegated to supporting roles, with only Zubin Varla’s adoptive father Harold making a significant contribution on stage. The story follows Jude (surely a nod to Thomas Hardy) who is taken in by monastic Christians when orphaned, only to be groomed by Brother Luke, played as a chilling monster by Elliot Cowan. Violently raped by paedophiles in his teens, Jude eventually escapes, but only into the sadistic hands of others. Tellingly, Elliot Cowan plays both his abusers, Caleb and Dr Traylor, a neat theatrical device that serves to emphasise the remorseless repetition of his suffering. 

Dwarfing all others on stage is James Norton’s performance as the tortured Jude. There is an almost Christ like feel to the torment he is put through, which coupled with an astonishing chameleon like ability to flip between Jude as a boy and a man, lends a gravitas to the smallest of events in his little life. Accompanied by live strings and claustrophobically hemmed in by Jan Versweyveld’s rolling film-scape of New York’s streets, this is an immediate and at times uncomfortable experience, but given its subject matter, have we a right to expect anything else?