Belgian director Ivo van Hove avoided reading Hanya Yanagihara’s contemporary bestselling epic A Little Life (2015) for years. Many of his peers were avid fans of the decades-long history of male friendship and physical trauma, but Van Hove – known for elegant, spare stage adaptations of The Damned, A View from the Bridge and Network – had mentally discarded the book, with his now iconic Peter- Hujar cover under “another gay coming-of-age story”. Eventually he read and loved the book and adapted it into a play for the International Theater Amsterdam in 2018. The production made its New York debut in Dutch with subtitles at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last fall. It is now making its English-language debut at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre. Starring Omari Douglas and James Norton. – Osman Can Yerebakan
