Review: The Fear of 13, Adrien Brody’s Criminal Broadway Debut

Nick Yarris has an incredible story to tell. Wrongly convicted of rape and murder in 1982, he spent 22 years on death row before DNA evidence exonerated him. That includes the time in 1985 he escaped custody and was shot at during a police manhunt. He was later apprehended in Florida after getting wrapped up in a plot to steal antique coins.

It’s a wild tale, and Yarris knows how to tell it, as evidenced by David Sington’s 2015 documentary The Fear of 13. The film takes the form of a solo play adorned by archival footage, with the subject himself narrating. Yarris is a natural storyteller, a man familiar with the American underbelly but able to season his stories about carjacking and prison with ten-dollar words like triskaidekaphobia. That’s because he discovered a passion for reading while in solitary confinement, which is just the kind of redemption arc Hollywood and Broadway audiences love. I kept wondering if his irresistible charm was leading me to incredulously believe a story that seems too good to be true (a note at the top of the film assures us that everything has been independently verified).

I had no such ambivalence viewing The Fear of 13, Lindsey Ferrentino’s stage adaptation, now at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre. I knew it was bullshit within minutes of Adrien Brody pimp-rolling onstage, flailing his arms like an extra in a hip-hop music video. Telegraphing hoodlum-with-a-heart-of-gold while declining to explore the idiosyncrasies that make Yarris a compelling character, Brody is giving the kind of performance that should have never made it past the rehearsal room, one that unhelpfully raises questions beyond the scope of the play: If Nick grew up on the mean streets of Philadelphia, why does he talk like he’s from Canarsie? If there was a Tony Award for Fraudulent Performance by an A-lister in a Play, Brody would have it on lock with this head-scratching Broadway debut.

It is possible he has been led astray by Ferrentino’s script, which is a rare example of a theatrical adaptation that requires more bodies than the film on which it was based. Ferrentino pulls back the microphone to allow for other voices, including Jacki (Tessa Thompson), a PhD poetry student who takes an interest in both Nick and his case. “The more ludicrous your stories are, the more I find out they’re true,” she tells Nick with wide-eyed wonder. It’s how we’re supposed to feel too, though the audience never quite gets there.

“NO,” a woman at the performance I attended audibly responded when Jacki informed us that she gave Nick her home phone number. Maybe it’s classism, maybe it’s the byproduct of a steady diet of true-crime podcasts, but I suspect her reaction had something to do with Brody’s transparently mannered performance. He’s obviously lying about something.

There are standouts in this 12-person cast: Joel Marsh Garland is an intimidating presence as the prison guard, making the threat of physical violence feel ever present. Eddie Cooper effortlessly conveys the overworked ennui of state power as Judge Giles, weighing Nick’s request for a speedy execution while chowing down on a roast beef sandwich. And Ephraim Sykes delivers the most moving performance of the play as Wesley, a man who deliberately commits crimes so he can be incarcerated with the man he loves (how they negotiated a shared cell is never explained). Sykes leads the male ensemble in an a cappella rendition of “I Wish It Would Rain” that could melt the heart of even the coldest prison warden.

Even the ushers are playing their part, barking orders at patrons to line up single-file and bringing an authentic carceral experience to Broadway in director David Cromer’s dark immersive vision.

Cromer compensates for a shaggy script with arresting aural and visual moments: The upstage wall of Arnulfo Maldonado’s set is three levels of prison cells, with Heather Gilbert’s dim institutional lighting accentuating the despair. Flats slide in from the side depicting a pawn shop (costume designer Sarah Laux serves retro ’80s looks during Nick’s big escape) and Jacki’s apartment, which Gilbert bathes in gentle incandescence, an angelic halo encasing Thompson’s body. Lee Kinney’s jarring sound design rips us out scenes with a loud prison buzzer, like a shot clock in a basketball game, a rude little reminder of the race against time Nick must run.

But The Fear of 13 isn’t really a thriller in that way. It’s more about the slow grind of bureaucracy and its toll on the human spirit. Yarris spent decades petitioning for DNA testing, only for his case to be stalled multiple times by intransigent lawyers and mishandled evidence. It’s the kind of story that will make you believe in conspiracies—specifically the conspiracy of criminal justice careerists covering their own asses.

The Fear of 13 is also about the way narratives take hold, how once they are officially accepted by authority, it is very hard to undo them—but not impossible. Never did I imagine I would witness the Oscar-winning star of The Pianist and The Brutalist give one of the most amateurish leading performances I’ve seen on a Broadway stage. But once you see the truth with your own eyes, it makes you question everything you’ve been told to believe by the so-called experts.