If you’re looking for a light-hearted play after a hard day’s work or an easy watch for a night out with friends, The Years is not the show for you – or, indeed, for the faint-hearted full-stop. Opening at the Harold Pinter Theatre following a successful run at the Almeida last year, Eline Arbo’s stage adaption of French author Annie Ernaux’s 2008 bestseller is already well known on the West End for audience reactions to one particularly harrowing scene. And I got to experience it first-hand.
Audiences are warned in advance with a list of “thematic triggers” posted online and in the play’s programme, outlining “blood” and “a graphic depiction of an abortion”. So when I braved the rain on Friday night to head into town, I wasn’t sure what to expect as, despite once harbouring ambitions of becoming a nurse or a vet, I am not a big fan of blood – and my goodness was there a lot of blood.
Ernaux has described The Years as a semi-autobiographical memoir. But it also explores time, memory, and the idea of a collective history as the text weaves through one woman’s life set against the backdrop of France’s political and cultural evolution.
It’s not about the narrator; it’s about the ‘we’ and the idea that memory can be both intimately personal and yet collective – something reinforced by the five women portraying the single voice of Annie. When the ensemble arrives on set, darkly lit from behind, there’s nothing to suggest these five women have anything in common. But Romola Garia, Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra and Harmony Rose Bremner’s shared portrayal of Annie deftly takes us through her different stages of life, effortlessly shifting from girlhood to grandmotherhood as she explores her sexuality.
The graphic sexual language doesn’t necessarily make it a comfortable watch at the best of times, as the elderly gentleman sat next to me discovered during Mohindra’s rather acrobatic discovery of masturbation. But there was one scene that proved more of a challenge for a handful of audience members.
We know what’s coming in advance; the tension builds as student Annie (Garai) misses her period and takes a trip to the doctor. She describes the backstreet abortion clinic in great detail, right down to the pan of boiling water on the hob, as she lies back on the table, screaming in agony. She’s told the contractions will start in a few days, but for audience-goers, it’s a matter of moments as she writhes and shouts when the pain starts. Then there’s the blood which spreads down her legs, her arms, everywhere. The intensity of Garai’s emotions is so raw and so all-consuming that I couldn’t look away, as much as I wanted to.
But that intensity breaks as the lights switch on and a staff member steps on stage to tell us there will be a short break as the front of house deals with an incident in the audience. We all look around, craning our necks to see what’s happened, as Gerai and fellow cast members silently retreat to the back of the stage. I chatted with the ladies next to me, who say they’d read a review of the previous run in which a man shouted at the ensemble that the scene was a “disgrace”. Others protested they weren’t given any warning (which, as I’ve already mentioned, is clearly not true, as there were warnings everywhere).
Looking around the stalls, there were definitely a few pale faces. Once theatre staff had stopped fanning one audience member, they were called to another incident. And then another. Twenty minutes in all.
Suddenly, we’re applauding, and Gerai takes her place perched on the edge of that table again as we’re thrust back into the stark reality of what a young Annie was going through. Though bloody, and it was very bloody, it was the moments immediately after the show was able to restart where the brutalising impact landed hardest, as an exhausted and emotional Garai slumps her head down on a table while the others casually discuss the virtues of frozen peas.
There were no more ‘incidents’ in the remaining 60 minutes of the show. Interestingly, the play had already been a hit in Amsterdam before it came to London where that scene had a very different reaction. Arbo told the Guardian: “We had a couple of reactions in the Netherlands, but nothing like those in London. So it was unexpected. It took me by surprise. I mean, people have seen Sarah Kane’s [violent] plays, haven’t they? The scene isn’t even realistic; she’s just explaining what happened. It’s implied. Shakespeare is a lot more bloody! I prayed for them every night that the show wouldn’t have to stop for a long time. Interestingly, it was more often men than women who reacted like that.”
Running at just under two hours with no interval, this adaptation of The Years is a bold storytelling of one woman’s unremarkable life remarkably. And one I wholeheartedly recommend you watch while you get the chance.
The Years plays at the Harold Pinter Theatre, until April 19.