In a small town in northern Denmark, the nursery school children celebrate the annual Harvest Festival while the men of the village retreat to their hunting lodge to drink beer, carouse, run through the frigid forest in their underwear, and rhapsodize about the glories of the hunt. Complete with one of the mud/blood-smeared hunters donning a deer’s head with prodigious antlers.
This in director Rupert Goold’s The Hunt, adapted by David Farr from the 2012 Danish film Jagten by Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm. The bracing psychological thriller, which opened in June 2019 at the Almeida in London, makes a belated U.S. premiere at St. Ann’s Warehouse through March 24.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as all worldly playgoers know. In this case, the divorced and highly likable schoolteacher Lucas (Tobias Menzies) is accused of abuse by Clara, the six-year-old child of a dysfunctional couple who are Lucas’s closest friends. Accusations take root, fester, and lead to hysteria that turns the hunter Lucas—the steadiest and surest shot of the lodge—into the hunted.
This can be fertile dramatic ground when handled as sensitively as it is here, in a 21st century play that brings to mind such classics as Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Significantly, Farr and the original Danish authors leave no question, from the start, that Lucas is thoroughly innocent of the charges. So much so that audience members might well gasp when, during the scene when authorities question young Clara, we watch the situation spin irremediably out of control. From there, the likable and noble Lucas is expelled from school, village, and even the sweat lodge in the forest. Will the truth be uncovered? Will hysteria overtake the situation and lead to harsh retribution? Or both?
Menzies, standing uncertainly in the ambiguous middle, gives a masterful performance as Lucas. The actor seems somewhat older than he did back in 2019 at the Almeida; but then, most of us seem somewhat older after those upheavals of 2020-2022. There is an additional element of celebrity: Menzies has in the interim become internationally known, courtesy of his Emmy-winning turn as Prince Philip in two seasons of The Crown.
Standing out among the rest are MyAnna Buring as Clara’s conflicted mother Mikaela; Alex Hassell as the damaged father Theo; and Lolita Chakrabarti as school principal Hilde. (It is a bonus to see the last on stage, having admired her plays Red Velvet and Life of Pi. The RSC production of her Hamnet has just finished its West End run.) While most of the cast appears to be imported, only three of the actors, in smaller male roles, appeared with Menzies at the Almeida press night back in 2019.
The London cast included a remarkable child actor named Taya Tower, who alternated in the role. Playing the role at Saturday’s press preview at St. Ann’s Warehouse is Aerina DeBoer, who gives an altogether different but equally chilling performance. DeBoer, an American who has appeared in two professional U.S. tours of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, appears to be almost too young for the role; so tiny that one of those frigid Scandinavian blasts might blow her away. Her performance is remarkably layered; the accusation is not evil but appears to be simply fanciful, suggested by onstage events which occur immediately prior to the incident. Later in the brisk 90-minute performance, she appears to fathom the enormity of what she has done without actually understanding what or how she did it.
The stars of the production, along with Menzies, are Goold and scenic designer Es Devlin. An expert at sweeping directorial visuals, Goold’s productions at the Almeida (where he serves as artistic director) include the memorable Ink, King Charles III, Enron, and the soon-to-arrive Patriots. He and designer Devlin build their production around a plexiglass cube, presumably intended to suggest the forest sweat-lodge but serving as house, schoolroom, sauna, interiors, exteriors, etc., as Goold and Devlin keep it swirling on a central turntable. This claustrophobic cube is in many ways the direct opposite of the massive edifice around which Devlin built her design for The Lehman Trilogy. Abetting Goold and Devlin are lighting designer Neil Austin (Red, Ink, Leopoldstadt), sound designer/composer Adam Cork (Red, Enron, Leopoldstadt), and costume designer Evie Gurney, and movement director Kal Matsena (who worked with Goold on Dear England).
While diverse theatrical elements are always intended to merge into a cohesive whole, the combination of movement (of scenery and of performers) along with lighting and sound rarely feed off each other so well as they do in Goold’s The Hunt. This enhances the mystery of what would in any case be a thoroughly intriguing play.
The Hunt opened February 25, 2024, at St. Ann’s Warehouse and runs through March 24. Tickets and information: stannswarehouse.org
