The Hunt at the Almeida review: A powerful but uncomfortable film adaptation
The Hunt, a tale of a man’s world crumbling around him in the wake of false accusations of paedophilia, is so utterly harrowing it barely qualifies as entertainment.
It’s two hours of nauseating tension, each escalation arriving like a physical blow. It’s a nightmare given solid form, and its transition from screen to stage only amplifies the horror through proximity.
Adapted from the 2012 film starring Mads Mikkelsen, it follows a taciturn primary school teacher, Lucas, who one day, apropos of nothing, is accused by a young girl of committing a lewd act in the classroom. Before he knows what’s hit him, his life is irretrievably fucked.
As well as examining the dark inverse of the Scandinavian dream – how close-knit communities can be toxic as well as nourishing – it also ponders some more universal – albeit deeply uncomfortable – questions. It asks us, for instance, to consider our assumption that children are unsexual. Preceding Clara’s accusation, she makes a disconcertingly adult pass at Lucas, and it’s her wounded pride that sparks the whole sorry mess.
It also looks at the way corrupted ideas can spread like a virus through communities. Once a single child has made an accusation, more soon follow, like terrible dominos crashing through Lucas’ life. In turn, the adults whip themselves into a frenzy, with the town hunting lodge transforming from a bunch of bantering lads into a pack of vicious animals with taste for blood. This tribalism takes physical form, with shadowy, folkloric figures with antlered heads stalking the edges of the stage, foreshadowing tragedies to come.
At the heart of it all is Lucas, a quiet man who silently suffers the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune. He refuses to cry and shout and scream, which is taken as an admission of guilt. A lot, therefore, rests on the shoulders of Tobias Menzies in this difficult role, and while he sells his character’s awkward charm, he’s less able to convey the turmoil that takes place beneath the surface.
ES Devlin, the set designer behind The Lehman Trilogy and American Psycho, has built a glass house as the play’s centrepiece. Through clever use of smoke, lighting and trapdoors, characters appear to vanish in an instant from within this enclosed space. One minute it’s a bright church full of people, the next a dull, opaque box housing a sinister silhouette.
The Hunt is as visually striking as it is emotionally draining; hardly what you could consider a gentle night at the theatre, but an undeniably powerful work.