It’s pretty much a throw of the dice to put on any Broadway play.
But how about a new play? And one with movie stars who’ve never been on Broadway?
Yikes.
But two time Oscar winner Adrien Brody, and rising star Tessa Thompson, are superb in “The Fear of 13,” which opened Wednesday night at the James Earl Jones (formerly Cort) Theater.
David Cromer, who can do no wrong, directs. Lindsey Ferrentino is the playwright.
“Fear” — based on a documentary of the same name — is not only a transfer from a UK run but also an overhaul. I didn’t see it in London, but apparently the new version is an improvement despite leaving out a few salient points.
It doesn’t matter. You want to see great actors live on stage under the guidance of an expert. With Brody, Thompson, and Cromer you get that. They should all look for Tony nominations — although I worry that the persnickety Tony nominees, who don’t like movie stars, won’t acknowledge their work.
“Fear” is the true story of Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Death Row for a rape and murder he didn’t commit in Pennsylvania, his home state. Nick is already a sketchy character, so the police railroading him into a confession was not a stretch. He’s put on Death Row.
In time, a volunteer comes to talk to the Death Row inmates. Her name is Jacki, and she falls under Nick’s spell pretty fast. He’s a great storyteller — sometimes Jacki questions his veracity. But he’s proven to be telling the truth, so she decides to help him reopen his case.
What happens is an intense — though often humorous — take on the searing frustration of the slow moving justice system, and how innocently incarcerated must depend on a village of strangers, and some luck, to reverse the course of their lives.
Both stars do striking work here. Thompson really commands the stage, even if her role as Jacki just lasts three quarters of the play. Brody works magic, appearing in almost every scene of the two hour, one act (no intermission) play. He gets to plumb a range of emotions that show he’s ready to take on deeper material in the future.
As for the real Nick Yarris, he was at the opening last night, sitting in a box above the audience. As wiry and electric as Brody plays him, Yarris was nattily dressed for a man who told me that he’s essentially homeless. “I live in my car,” he said, although for his time on Broadway he’s found some little apartment in New Jersey.
Isn’t he making money from the play? He says, no, that he’s giving his proceeds to the family of the woman who was raped and murdered. He feels his confession prevented her from getting justice and her family finding closure. I stood with a few others in the lobby of the Cort, and they were agape listening to this reasoning. It’s a selfless act, but Yarris can’t be talked out of it.
In the audience: Mamie Gummer, ome of the three acting Streep sisters, plus Tony and Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham, rapper and actor Common, Rebecca Hall, and Brody’s famous wife, designer Georgina Chapman, and Brody’s mother, legendary photographer, Sylvia Plachy, who told she’d seen the play three times and was “overwhelmed.”
