The Years

My main reason for seeing this play was its amazing cast of Deborah Findlay. Gina McKee, Romola Garai with Anjli Mohindra and Harmony-Rose Bremner, all playing ‘Annie’ from small child to older age to create a powerful but playful story of a life.  The whole cast is on stage for the whole performance, with each age introduced with a tableau.  Annie strikes a pose for a snapshot to set the scene in front of a white sheet as a backdrop; a fresh page added for each chunk of the story with the narrative handed on from one iteration of Annie to the next.  

This is a history of the last 60 years through one woman’s life, taking in politics and world events, cultural and sexual change through the decades with collective memories of different times but focusing on the intensely personal experiences of one woman.  I loved the depictions of moving through the generations, but with the essential woman still present.  It felt like it struck exactly the right note of living now, but with the past (and future) layered there too, and the strangeness of finding yourself at the top of that generational tree looking back, which feels very relevant to me at the moment.

With plenty of content warnings (apparently some people fainted at the very visceral illegal abortion scene performed by Garai) and challenging and uncomfortable in some respects, it was also funny warm and thoughtful whilst underlining the changes in women’s lives over the decades.  The focus on female sexuality was unusual in its graphic nature too, but was also pretty funny almost as often as it was sad, and I liked the breaking of the fourth wall, sometimes adding a note of levity just when needed.  And the 80’s exercise class had me laughing a lot.  I thought the use of the sheets to create a record of the big events in this woman’s life, from the backdrop of the initial tableaux, marked, whether by blood, glitter, spilt wine or graffiti, as a physical record of a life and used to create a montage at the end was a lovely touch. 

Amazing performances from all five of the women who play all the other characters as well as Annie.  This was an absolute pleasure to watch, from individual performances to the collaborative scenes pulling it all together, and let’s not forget about the music, dancing  and singing either, particularly noting the talent of Bremner, who is new to me but has an amazing voice.

It is sold out and finishing in a few days so sorry if you missed it, this was a good one.

NB:  I was trying to remember what this play reminded me of, and it is The Confessions which I wrote about here   another play looking at one woman's life, also based on a real woman and also pretty powerful.  I think in both cases it just highlights how far women's lives have changed in the past 60 years and how much we have to lose.