The Connection Had to be Severed, The Play Stopped.
A short review of Annie Ernaux's play 'The Years' at the Harold Pinter Theatre
The woman fainted, she just toppled over onto Nick’s shoulder. He held her up with a concerned brow. They stopped the play.
An abortion had been had, on stage, moments before. Where Annie, or one of the younger Annie’s, had a kitchen top abortion over white linens, like they did in the 50s in France (or anywhere else for that matter). Red food colouring, which was likely thickened using gelatin or a similar substance, resembled the real thing so convincingly that the woman sat on the chair next to N, second row from the stage, fainted and the play stopped.
The play, based on Annie Ernaux’s book “The Years” chronicles the lives of others through time, from within time, as she herself is chronicled. Moments that punctuate her life — masterbating for the first time, having sex, an abortion, kids, marriage and a divorce— much like the lives of many other women, are interspersed with collective memories that signpost a particular moment in time. From the remnant effects of WW2, to Edith Piaf’s song played on a balcony, to the sexual revolution of ’69, to the introduction of the washing machine, the invention of the contraceptive pill, the use of a Walkman, to the millennial conflict between Microsoft and Apple. Time passed over each woman, different iterations of the same one, as if they were a stitch attaching a patch to a large quilt.
Annie Ernaux’s writing has this effect. While the book is less explicitly about herself than the play, a bi-product of transposing a book full of internalizations onto the physicality of the stage, it still somehow is reminiscent of all of us. We see our own reflections in the brilliant performances by Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner, all representative of different times in Annie’s life.
The woman fainted, maybe because there was blood that was awfully convincing on the hands, knees and thighs of another or maybe because there’s a universality to Annie’s words and to this extend, the play, that meant this visceral reaction was completely warranted.
‘The Years’ play features Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose-Bremner and was shown at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London on the 30th of January, where I went to see it with Nick.