'The Fear of 13' review — Adrien Brody gives a soulful, awe-inspiring performance in a real-life tale of injustice

Read our review of new play The Fear of 13, which revisits Nick Yarris's imprisonment on Death Row, now in performances at the Donmar Warehouse to 30 November.

Fear not: Adrien Brody may be a stage neophyte but shows, in the new play The Fear of 13, that he is born to tread the boards. Whereas visiting American film names are sometimes cut undue slack on the London stage, Brody is the real deal – a simmering, soulful theatre animal who on this evidence may well find himself in time with a caseful of additional trophies to add to his 2003 Oscar.

The fact that Brody is an Oscar frontrunner again this year for The Brutalist might prompt a less adventuresome performer to down tools and stick to promotional duties. Instead, the wiry, ever-expressive actor is powering his way through American writer Lindsay Ferrentino’s play adapted from David Sington’s 2015 documentary film of the same name about Nick Yarris and his wrongful imprisonment on Death Row.

Brody’s star lustre inaugurates Timothy Sheader’s regime as the new artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse, the Covent Garden address renowned in its day for hosting many a movie star (Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow, amongst others). Current evidence would suggest a desire to reclaim that audience-friendly ground, whilst marrying celebrity stardust to projects requiring real stamina.

I can’t think of many performers who would agree to a show requiring a lengthy final monologue here delivered by Brody in his pants, stepping in and out of a shower as Yarris’s narrative reaches a conclusion in which justice is finally seen to be done.

But the director Justin Martin’s superb production is always in service to the rending story it wants to tell. Having led Jodie Comer to a 2023 Tony Award for her solo play Prima Facie, another depiction of an iniquitous legal system, Martin is clever enough to surround Brody with an exemplary cast who collectively shift proceedings away from anything resembling thespian showboating.

Brody has always had the most yearning eyes imaginable, and they take in an audience who may find themselves seated thrillingly close to the actor, even as other spectators look on from a gallery perch above.

Miriam Buether’s characteristically shrewd set allows the prison environs that shape Yarris’s life to give way to domestic interiors, once Yarris falls for the prison volunteer, Jackie (Nana Mensah), whose interviews with the inmate allow Ferrentino to fill in the necessary background. Their seduction takes place over a shared affinity for JD Salinger, and Yarris’s love of language is evident throughout – not least the word “incredulous”, which turns out to be well-suited to the surreal situation in which he finds himself.

The ending for those who know Yarris’s story will be preordained, but that makes no difference. You’re swept up in the specifics of life behind bars – the prisoners conjoin to do a cappella wonders with the music of The Temptations – and a quicksilver ensemble navigates guards, inmates, and even Yarris’s parents as needed.

A passing nod to The Shawshank Redemption only made me think of this play’s superiority to the dismal stage adaptation of that movie in the West End in 2009, and you have to smile when Brody’s Yarris says of one particularly emotive law-enforcement official (played by Michael Fox), “Give the guy an Oscar”.

Some might wish for a tougher ending than is here posited, the play’s movement away from bleakness into something resembling light echoing the recent Donmar production of Next to Normal, which traversed that very path.

But I surely wasn’t the only one who watched the curtain call misty-eyed at the restoration of justice and in awe of Brody’s impassioned commitment to this story of snatching victory from the jaws of psychic defeat. It’s taken this singular talent four decades to turn his attentions to the theatre. Let’s hope he doesn’t wait that long again.

The Fear of 13 is at the Donmar Warehouse to 30 November.

Photo credit: The Fear of 13 (Photos by Manuel Harlan)