Theatre in Review: The Hunt (Almeida Theatre at St. Ann's Warehouse) This extraordinary psychological thriller begins with a quiet exchange between a schoolteacher and one of his students; as one watches it, it's hard to imagine the fallout to come. The Hunt aims at the nerve center of a small rural community and scores a direct hit, unleashing waves of suspicion and recrimination, with violence looming in the background. Thomas Vinterberg's 2012 film, which took three prizes at Cannes and was nominated for an Academy Award, was an exercise in slow-boiling tension; David Farr's adaptation of the screenplay by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm, staged by Rupert Goold, ups the ante, resulting in an almost unpleasantly suspenseful experience that speaks to our current state of social unease. The gunsight of The Hunt is aimed at Lucas, a divorced, forty-ish schoolteacher in a small Denmark town. Early middle age is giving him a rough ride: His ex-wife has decamped for the city, taking their adolescent son; the local secondary school has closed, so Lucas has taken over the kindergarten, which others in town see as a demotion. Still, he is seemingly content, especially when hanging out with the all-male contingent of his hunting lodge. An unusually reticent sort, Lucas fields complaints that he is unknowable and a little judgmental of others. "You have such high expectations of us," a female friend says. "And we always let you down." The disaster begins with Clara, the five-year-old daughter of Lucas' close friends Mikala and Theo. An acrimonious pair, thanks in part to Theo's struggles with unemployment and the bottle, they are unashamed about battling it out in front of their fragile, neglected daughter, who is already showing signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clara rather obviously has some feelings for the stoic, gentle Lucas, shyly offering him a hug and lollipop, which he nicely refuses according to the rules that forbid teachers and their charges from getting too personal. But the ensuing silence between Tobias Menzies, as Lucas, and Clara (Aerina DeBoer at the performance I attended) is deafening. Following standard procedure, Lucas has unintentionally handed the girl a devastating rejection. What nobody knows is Peter, another kindergartener, has shown Clara a pornographic video retrieved from his father's phone. Hurt and confused by the lollipop episode, she impulsively claims to Hilde, the school's head, that Lucas exposed himself to her. After a session of leading questions with a school-appointed interrogator (in reality, the local accountant), her testimony results in a full-out accusation of sexual abuse. What happens next has overtones of both The Children's Hour, as Lucas becomes an outcast, and The Crucible, as more children come forward and fear spreads like a virus. But The Hunt doesn't have the accusatory edge of the Lillian Hellman play or the political allegory of Arthur Miller's drama. Instead, it puts its melodramatic action to philosophical purposes, coolly noting how quickly a close-knit, tradition-bound community can slip a cog, unraveling horribly. Clara is too young to understand what she has done; the parents are genuinely concerned for their children's safety; the school officials follow the standard guidelines; the other children's stories are easily disproved. Nevertheless, the innocent Lucas ends up isolated, denounced, and quite possibly in physical danger. Farr's script is quick to note the widespread damage incurred in the wider community, especially in the case of Theo and Mikala, whose already-troubled marriage buckles under the strain of uncertainty. Mikala (MyAnna Buring, visibly fraying from scene to scene), begins to doubt Clara's account yet is fearful of betraying her only child. When Theo says, "Maybe [Lucas] was just offering me a version of himself," she replies, savagely, "I do. Sometimes. To you. Maybe we're all just strangers." Theo (Alex Hassell), worn out by stress and heartsick that his daughter has become an object of constant scrutiny, tries to terrorize Lucas into taking a plea agreement. By then, Lucas, the victim of an unforgivably cruel (and anonymous) act of revenge, has shown up at the local church, disrupting Christmas Mass with the awful evidence. The Mass is staged inside the tiny, peaked house at the center of Es Devlin's stark scenic design. ("It looks like a Monopoly piece," said the woman sitting next to me.) Constructed of smart glass, the walls can instantly turn opaque or transparent, facilitating various characters' shock entrances. The sight of the building crammed with lodge members or Christmas worshippers tells you everything about the town's insularity. Neil Austin's lighting has a geometric precision that matches the scenery; he also provides a mounting sense of darkness as Lucas' situation becomes increasingly threatening. Many of the most effective lighting cues are tightly linked to Adam Cork's sound effects, especially the menacing sound of gunshots. Evie Gurney's costumes feel authentic to the drama's setting while making subtle distinctions among the characters. (Hang on for the half-human, half-animal creatures seen in an especially nightmarish sequence.) Menzies' understated performance runs the risk of making Lucas' passive suffering seem too saintly, but the actor skillfully makes the case that his character is hamstrung by his inhibited nature. (He appears to have driven his ex-wife half-mad with his accommodating ways.) "You lack boundaries. I have too many," he tells Theo. In addition to Buring and Hassell, other standouts include Raphael Casey as Lucas' son (his one source of unconditional love) and Lolita Chakrabarti as the well-meaning head of the school, who puts the crisis into motion. The Hunt is a rare example of all elements coming together to create a production that moves with the relentlessness of a bullet. The action climaxes with a sweat-inducing confrontation between Lucas and Theo, during which some ugly truths are aired, with death only a trigger away. Indeed, the resolution that follows hardly seems believable, a feeling confirmed in a shivery finale suggesting that fear remains on the prowl. We are left with profoundly disquieting thoughts: Once a certain unease is injected into the community, is the damage permanent? Once the social guardrails have been breached, is it possible to turn back? --David Barbour 
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