The Father (MTC Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"'The Father' offers one of the most disorienting experiences in town. Yet, as directed by Doug Hughes, this production exudes a cool clarity that borders on the clinical....Mr. Langella impressively played King Lear several years ago, but it’s here he nails the rage, pathos and cruelty behind that titanic part...Mr. Langella bravely makes sure that André remains an unsympathetic soul, even as his condition inspires an aching empathy."
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"The play keeps its audience in a continuous state of disorientation, smudging the lines between reality and misperception...Such theatrical tricks are central to the depiction of André’s crumbling state of mind—more than the dialogue or the characters, who are difficult to know very well. But this production has another special effect in the imposing form of Langella himself...'The Father' may not be deep, but its depiction of André is effective and sad."
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"Langella gets so close to strip-mining the core of his gifts that you think he may cave in, or that you will. It’s a must-see performance. 'The Father,' though, is only a might-see play, more of a vehicle than a destination...The play defies logic at times...If 'The Father' gets only partway across the ocean on its own steam, Hughes has tugged it near to shore, and Langella docks it every night. What he does to the play is almost as pleasurable and improving as what he does to the audience."
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"Each scene undermines what had been taken for granted before. We become disoriented, baffled, unable to identify the past or even the present...The dismantling of dramatic reality treats dementia as an intellectual process, not as an emotional one. But Mr. Langella corrects the balance. We cannot help but be caught up in his suspicion, first when he believes 'there is something funny going on,' and finally, searingly, when it isn’t even clear to him to whom it has all been happening."
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"I don’t think Alzheimer’s has lost its shock value, especially to a generation dealing with it head-on. But Doug Hughes’ production, with one notable exception, seems slight at 90 intermissionless minutes. The exception, of course, is Langella, giving another master class in felt performance as André regresses — devolves, really — from strong-willed fighter to whimpering babe...It’s a performance of surpassing empathy, and sadness."
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"A slick but superficial new play...It’s a meaty dramatic gambit, though not ground-breaking...At its best, Zeller’s writing is crisp, darkly humorous and emits a hushed Pinteresque chill. On the down side, the play is so sterile it sidesteps the mess that comes with mental deterioration...Fortunately, though, Langella is forever intriguing."
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"Zeller’s disturbing drama is a highly personal study of a proud old man’s inexorable mental deterioration that is easy to admire, but quite painful to watch...There’s no real drama to the basic structure of the play, just the ruthless forward movement of one man’s inevitable fate...Langella does a superb job of communicating the conflicted feelings of a man who can’t believe—and won’t accept—the changes in his life...Director Hughes handles the material with sensitivity."
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"As a visual metaphor for the advancing isolation of an unraveling mind surrendering to dementia, the staging is certainly eloquent. It's matched by the powerful work of Langella, conveying the painful freefall from eroding dignity into infantilized helplessness...But French playwright Florian Zeller's drama is a stubbornly unemotional experience, its approach too cerebral and distancing to achieve the shattering impact that the performances demand."
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