The Years ★★★★ Almeida Theatre | Jul 27 - Aug 31, 2024


Nobel Prize-winner Annie Ernaux’s Les Années maps the author's personal journey onto the history of France from 1941 until 2006. It has been effectively adapted by Eline Arbo for the stage and in turn five actors (Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra, and Harmony Rose-Bremner) either play the unnamed protagonist or act as a narrator/chorus for her experience. The cast adroitly slide into and out of character, and each bring strengths to the role although Garai and Rose-Bremner stood out for us. The trigger for the series of personal and social memories that are elaborated in the narrative is apparently a series of snapshots taken at various points in the central character's life. However, despite the vivid portrayal of her family history, her sexual experiences, and her political involvement there is a sense of detachment throughout. Her youthful obsession with masturbation, her disquieting first sexual encounter, her horrific illegal abortion, her tumbling into an unsatisfactory marriage, the challenges of motherhood, divorce and later her uncontrollable passion for her lovers may be presented so graphically that they are shocking, but it is all done rather dispassionately. It is as if this were a life lived primarily as grist for the artistic mill, whether it is the photographs which bring back the memories, or the journals which have been fashioned into this artful memoir. The character reflects, but doesn't really reflect upon her experience, and the viewer is kept at a distance. Any moral, or even emotional, perspective put on events tends to come from the audience. For the most part we are simply given the artifacts of a personal and political history and are invited to put our own construction on them – humour, nostalgia, or horror. Paul Cézanne is reputed to have said “Monet is only an eye, but my God what an eye!" The same might be said of Annie Ernaux and this adaptation of The Years.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Ali Wright

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Map & Location: Almeida St, London N1 1TA, UK

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