The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureTheatre

ANNA at the National Theatre

ANNA at the National Theatre | Theatre review
22 May 2019
Connor Campbell
Avatar
Connor Campbell
22 May 2019

The team behind ANNA is keen to make reviewing the play tricky, urging the audience to “Keep Us Safe” and prevent the show’s secrets from leaking out of the auditorium. And, honestly, that’s fair enough. It does make it a tad difficult to fully grapple with, however, given that opinions are likely to be predicated on the way the plot itself unspools.

East Berlin, 1968. The GDR rules with tapes and phone tapping as much as overt terror and propaganda. Who to trust is the question; the answer, probably no-one. In amidst this unsettling climate, Anna (Phoebe Fox) is throwing a do for her husband Hans (Paul Bazely), newly made Section Manager. Work colleagues, uninvited guests and Hans’S new boss (Max Bennett) all turn up to celebrate the promotion … and, well, let’s stop there for the sake of spoilers.

This review probably shouldn’t go any further without mentioning the show’s core gimmick. Each audience member is wearing their own pair of headphones, à la Complicite’s The Encounter. Here they are used for a more naturalistic effect than Simon McBurney’s binaural trickery. We are Anna. We hear what she hears. Every whispered comment and muttered aside in her ear. The cacophony of noise as guests pile in. The celebrations quieten when she leaves the room, replaced by the heavy breathing and frantic scuttling of panic.

This sound design, courtesy of Ben and Max Ringham, wouldn’t be half as impressive without Jon Clark’s lighting. The ember dot of a single lit cigarette. The ambient glow of a hallway light. Slowly the flat – Vicki Mortimer places the set behind a glass screen; the audience is explicitly part of the surveillance – is illuminated, the afterthought of a rushed person just getting in. The play’s tensest passages come when the lighting and sound design combine, director Natalie Abrahami overseeing a shift into full-on thriller mode.

Where things get a bit sticky is Ella Hickson’s plotting. ANNA is only just over an hour long. It asks questions about who and how we trust; love vs duty, personal vs party; what it’s like for the face of your deepest trauma to walk through the door unannounced. There’s a lot there. But though it is nicely paced early on, about a third of the way in the narrative picks up and never slows down, barreling through twists without a moment’s pause. It really could do with a bit more time for the paranoid stew to simmer before it completely boils over.

Keeping up with Hickson’s hurtling plot is Fox. We track her every movement, witness masks slip and be hastily fastened back on. Thanks to her, the emotion of what Anna is going through is constantly foregrounded – the weight of decisions she has made and those that have been thrust upon her, the wrenching convergence of past and present. Without Fox the production would be something lesser; with her, it’s an absolute ride.

★★★★★

Connor Campbell
Photos: Johan Persson

ANNA is at the National Theatre from 11th May until 15th June 2019. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Related Itemsfeaturedreview

More in Theatre

Live Lab at The Yard Theatre: An interview with associate director Cheryl Gallagher

Mersa Auda
Read More

We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online

★★★★★
Samuel Nicholls
Read More

We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks

Mersa Auda
Read More

Public Domain at Southwark Playhouse

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More

Unlimited Festival at the Southbank Centre: Centre stage for diversity

★★★★★
James Humphrey
Read More

RSC Next Generation: Young Bloods proves Shakespeare is timeless

Brooke Snowe
Read More

An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories

Selina Begum
Read More

A Livestream with David Bedella at Crazy Coqs Online

★★★★★
Regan Harle
Read More

Undercover at Morpheus Show Online

★★★★★
Michael Higgs
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Theatre review

Connor Campbell

ANNA

★★★★★

Dates

11th May - 15th June 2019

Price

£15-£70

Links & directions

TwitterInstagramFacebookWebsiteMap

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Female filmmakers lead nominees for the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards
    Cinema
  • An interview with Ifrah Ismael: Tales from the Front Line and other stories
    Theatre
  • Persian Lessons
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Jeremiah Fraites – Piano Piano
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Lonely the Brave – The Hope List
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • 23 Walks
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Live Lab at The Yard Theatre: An interview with associate director Cheryl Gallagher
    Theatre
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks
    Theatre
  • Hello Cosmos – Dream Harder
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Undercover at Morpheus Show Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Ten short literary collections to get you back into reading
    Literature
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Vincent River at Trafalgar Studios | Theatre review
Hoard at Arcola Theatre | Theatre review