Timothy Sheader’s inaugural production as artistic director at London’s Donmar Warehouse theatre is “unmissable”, said Claire Allfree in The Telegraph.
Combining “Hollywood glamour” with a “wrenching portrait of the inequities of American justice”, “The Fear of 13” tackles the real-life tale of Nick Yarris, who spent over two decades on death row in Pennsylvania for a rape and murder he didn’t commit. Based on David Sington’s 2015 documentary of the same name, Lindsey Ferrentino’s play follows Yarris’s “tortuous journey” to freedom.
Oscar-winning actor Adrien Brody takes on the role of Yarris, capturing the conflicting feelings of a “prisoner caught between resignation and tantalising hope” with “deft sensitivity”, said Sam Marlowe in The Stage. He is “mesmerising” to watch.
“This is an actor at the top of his game and it’s a privilege to watch him up close,”said Fiona Mountford on the i news site. A “dynamic” ensemble takes on the roles of the various wardens and prisoners but it’s the budding relationship between Yarris and volunteer researcher Jackie Schaffer (Nana Mensah) that gradually becomes the focus of the action. It’s testament to the strength of the duo’s performances that we “find ourselves rooting for the most unlikely of couples”.
Miriam Buether has done “thrilling” things with the stage design. An upstairs gallery has been built where the actors sometimes appear, and occasionally the “bleak windows of the prison’s visiting area lighten to reveal an almost comically perfect domestic interior” which Yarris is convinced will always remain just out of reach.
“Engaging” as the play is, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian, it could do with “slowing things down, pausing longer and deeper on Yarris’s heart and mind”. At times it feels as if director Justin Martin is trying to “squeeze” everything in so it becomes more a “whistle-stop narrative of events, rather than a poised, potent dramatisation”.
There are moments when the production softens the “roughest edges of the murderous prison system, smoothing them with humour and sentimentality”, added Alice Saville in The Independent. The “profound bleakness” of the story is “kept at bay” by the “bustling of guards and prisoners” constantly entering or leaving the stage. Still “it’s engrossing and poignant, even if it’s afraid to let the dark in”.
All in all, “The Fear of 13” will “go down as one of the best new plays of the year”, said Alex Wood in What’s On Stage. “Sheader couldn’t have kicked off his tenure with a more thrilling premiere.”
At Donmar Warehouse London, until 30 November