Acclaimed actor Alfred Molina in a tour-de-force performance that will leave you breathless.
André was once a tap dancer. He lives with his daughter, Anne, and her husband, Antoine. Or was André an engineer, whose daughter Anne lives in London with her new lover, Pierre? The thing is, he is still wearing his pajamas, and he can’t find his watch. He is starting to wonder if he’s losing control.
Featuring acclaimed actor Alfred Molina (Frida, An Education, Enchanted April) in a tour-de-force performance that will captivate audiences and leave you breathless.
Playwright Florian Zeller keeps the action intentionally disorienting. Just as a scene comes into focus, the audience is abruptly, repeatedly thrust into darkness. The effect moves from exciting to disorienting to irritating. The story is fractured, abrupt and sometimes repetitive, constructed to reflect a scattered, unreliable, disintegrating memory. Faces and identities of those who surround and care for Andre become interchangeable. Scenes lurch, seemingly indiscriminately, back and forth through time. It’s difficult to distinguish reality from the hazing effects of André’s advancing dementia. - RECOMMENDED
Briskly staged by Jessica Kubzansky, this Playhouse production does everything right, but it does not find a way to overcome the play’s contradictions. It has trouble striking a balance between André’s growing isolation and the detachment of the people around him. The choppy nature of the scenes doesn’t help.
Every once in awhile a play comes along that reminds us what – and how exciting – theater can be. In The Father (Le Père), French playwright Florian Zeller doesn’t just present a man with dementia, he makes us feel as if we have it, too. Electrifying Southern California with Zeller’s genius is the Pasadena Playhouse and their returning director, Jessica Kubzansky. Translated into English by Christopher Hampton, The Father is a masterful achievement.
Who could resist checking out the west coast debut of Florian Zeller’s celebrated Moliere, Olivier, and Tony Award-winning play at Pasadena Playhouse, especially featuring a crisply intelligent translation from the original French by none other than Christopher Hampton. Add into the mix direction by the Boston Court’s artistic director Jessica Kubzansky, one of LA’s most revered talents, and then polish the diamond by casting the phenomenal Alfred Molina in the title role, and you’d have to be quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan to have a valid excuse for not seeing this magnificent production.
Alfred Molina renders a devastating depiction of dementia in Florian Zeller’s award winning The Father. Ably directed by Jessica Kubzansky, this one-act Alzheimer-palooza is staged in what is usually described as a “cinematic” way, with intercutting and perhaps even montage used to indicate Andre’s (Molina) increasingly fragmented, confused perception of reality.
The concept of seeing the world through the eyes of someone with late-stage dementia is frightening and deeply sad, and the visceral approach this production takes is truly startling. Yes, it is off-putting to watch scenes that are sometimes out of order or repeated with only small differences, but this forced uncomfortability puts the audience in André’s shoes, whether they like it or not.
What The Father does that many classic absurdist plays do not: it makes you care.
The always excellent director, Jessica Kubzanksy, also Artistic Director of Boston Court Pasadena, guides her cast to moments of both touching connection between daughter Anne (Sue Cremin) and father, as well as physical terror in the father/son-in-law relationship, brought to life impressively by two different actors inhabiting André’s garbled mind, Robert Mammana as Man (quiet, commanding) and Michael Manuel as Pierre (domineering, abusive), both welcome, familiar faces on stage in Pasadena and nationwide.
The play, however, is more adventurous in its format than it is expansive in its vision. The subject matter has a personal resonance for many of us, and I found myself gripped by the accurate depiction of the dementia dilemma.
But I wanted more from the drama than an ingenious theatrical illustration of the problem. I yearned to leap from the medical impairment into metaphor.
Zeller and Hampton have crafted a wonderful jigsaw puzzle of a play and director Jessica Kubansky has skillfully fitted all the intricate pieces together with superb craftsmanship.
As eye-opener of a play with as thrilling a lead performance as you’ll see any time soon, The Father will not only hold you on the edge of your seat. You’ll be talking about what you’ve witnessed long after its devastating final scene fades to black.
Playwright Florian Zeller keeps the action intentionally disorienting. Just as a scene comes into focus, the audience is abruptly, repeatedly thrust into darkness. The effect moves from exciting to disorienting to irritating. The story is fractured, abrupt and sometimes repetitive, constructed to reflect a scattered, unreliable, disintegrating memory. Faces and identities of those who surround and care for Andre become interchangeable. Scenes lurch, seemingly indiscriminately, back and forth through time. It’s difficult to distinguish reality from the hazing effects of André’s advancing dementia. - RECOMMENDED
Briskly staged by Jessica Kubzansky, this Playhouse production does everything right, but it does not find a way to overcome the play’s contradictions. It has trouble striking a balance between André’s growing isolation and the detachment of the people around him. The choppy nature of the scenes doesn’t help.
Every once in awhile a play comes along that reminds us what – and how exciting – theater can be. In The Father (Le Père), French playwright Florian Zeller doesn’t just present a man with dementia, he makes us feel as if we have it, too. Electrifying Southern California with Zeller’s genius is the Pasadena Playhouse and their returning director, Jessica Kubzansky. Translated into English by Christopher Hampton, The Father is a masterful achievement.
Who could resist checking out the west coast debut of Florian Zeller’s celebrated Moliere, Olivier, and Tony Award-winning play at Pasadena Playhouse, especially featuring a crisply intelligent translation from the original French by none other than Christopher Hampton. Add into the mix direction by the Boston Court’s artistic director Jessica Kubzansky, one of LA’s most revered talents, and then polish the diamond by casting the phenomenal Alfred Molina in the title role, and you’d have to be quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan to have a valid excuse for not seeing this magnificent production.
Alfred Molina renders a devastating depiction of dementia in Florian Zeller’s award winning The Father. Ably directed by Jessica Kubzansky, this one-act Alzheimer-palooza is staged in what is usually described as a “cinematic” way, with intercutting and perhaps even montage used to indicate Andre’s (Molina) increasingly fragmented, confused perception of reality.
The concept of seeing the world through the eyes of someone with late-stage dementia is frightening and deeply sad, and the visceral approach this production takes is truly startling. Yes, it is off-putting to watch scenes that are sometimes out of order or repeated with only small differences, but this forced uncomfortability puts the audience in André’s shoes, whether they like it or not.
What The Father does that many classic absurdist plays do not: it makes you care.
The always excellent director, Jessica Kubzanksy, also Artistic Director of Boston Court Pasadena, guides her cast to moments of both touching connection between daughter Anne (Sue Cremin) and father, as well as physical terror in the father/son-in-law relationship, brought to life impressively by two different actors inhabiting André’s garbled mind, Robert Mammana as Man (quiet, commanding) and Michael Manuel as Pierre (domineering, abusive), both welcome, familiar faces on stage in Pasadena and nationwide.
The play, however, is more adventurous in its format than it is expansive in its vision. The subject matter has a personal resonance for many of us, and I found myself gripped by the accurate depiction of the dementia dilemma.
But I wanted more from the drama than an ingenious theatrical illustration of the problem. I yearned to leap from the medical impairment into metaphor.
Zeller and Hampton have crafted a wonderful jigsaw puzzle of a play and director Jessica Kubansky has skillfully fitted all the intricate pieces together with superb craftsmanship.
As eye-opener of a play with as thrilling a lead performance as you’ll see any time soon, The Father will not only hold you on the edge of your seat. You’ll be talking about what you’ve witnessed long after its devastating final scene fades to black.
