Manhunt is Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson for the stage. 

And premiering Robert Icke’s new play at London’s Royal Court Theatre puts it in the same lineage as the Angry Young Men. 

Through this lens, Manhunt is a 21st-century angry young man. And theater offers the distinct opportunity to feel what it’s like to be in the same room, to share the same space and air, as one such angry young man.

As for the production’s final image: is it the next angry young man, locked up, waiting to be radicalized by and unleashed on the world? Or is it the main character doomed to be stuck in a forever purgatory for his sins?