Adrien Brody in Death Row Drama
Righteous indignation over the travesty of the American justice system and staunch advocacy against wrongful incarceration make it natural to want to applaud The Fear of 13. The same goes for Adrien Brody’s intensely wrought performance as Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania for a murder and rape he did not commit. Lindsey Ferrentino’s one-act play is based on a 2015 documentary of the same name by British filmmaker David Sington, in which Yarris proves a commanding narrator of his own frequently discursive story. But on stage, it’s an awkward mix, with a lot of monotonously earnest direct address and too few dramatized scenes to lend it vitality. The play was well-received in its London premiere two years ago at the more intimate 250-seat Donmar Warehouse in a different production that also starred Brody. Broadway director David Cromer presumably has had to scale up for a space with a capacity of just over 1,000, which does the lumpy material no favors. Sadly, nor does the casting of Tessa Thompson as Jacki Miles, the …
