LAST night, I saw The Years.

I didn’t faint.

The 115-minute show (no interval), now transferred from The Almeida to the West End, has reportedly been paused repeatedly due to audience members (men) fainting and requiring removal.

There is, of course, a trigger warning: graphic depictions of abortion, blood, a coerced sexual encounter and sexual content. 

According to Director Eline Arbo, the Dutch-language premiere at The Hague in 2022 did not elicit the same reactions.

At the performance I attended, there was a 15-minute stoppage; Romola Garai stood motionless, arms and legs covered in blood. The hypersensitive ushers, scuttling through the stalls in anticipation, and the creaking floorboards of the Harold Pinter Theatre added to the tension.

My reservation is that it seems suspiciously convenient for the play’s political message that men are collapsing nightly during the pivotal backstreet abortion scene.

Anyway. The Years follows the lives of women across the decades, beginning in the Second World War, and is based on the quasi-memoir “Les Années” by French Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux.

Five formidable actresses—Deborah Findlay, Romola Garai, Gina McKee, Anjli Mohindra, and Harmony Rose-Bremner—collaborate to portray and narrate the life of a single woman. Born in 1940, her story unfolds against the backdrop of post-war France, navigating the era’s tumultuous social upheavals: the Algerian colonial crisis, the burgeoning sexual revolution, the student protests of 1968, and the rise of free-market capitalism.

It opened as a stage play in Amsterdam in 2022 before its UK premiere on July 31.

Arbo’s direction is undeniably skillful—cinematic and beautiful, maintaining a compelling pace. Her production is put together with considerable skill but it lives in a claustrophobic world of its own.

At the outset of each scene, a photograph of Annie is projected onto a white sheet backdrop, setting the stage for a stark evening. The stage is minimalist, with a central table and a brick wall backdrop.

Young Annie observes the conversations of older relatives, who reminisce about the war years. As the story unfolds, a poignant arc culminates in older Annie’s bewildered gaze at the modern world. The circular rail on the floor visually reinforces the cyclical nature of this woman’s life.

But of course, the cast is excellent, tightly managed, and smoothly juxtaposed under a surging score.

Yes, this is another major production with no set. But it is clear eyed and austerely balanced, along with being magnificently acted.

I left thinking about my mother and her mother – gains we take for granted that were hard-won. The evening had a psychological effect on me; it will stay with me.

And as any number of women can attest, the future, though uncertain, can still be shaped. 

The Years runs until April 19, Harold Pinter Theatre, London