The Father (MTC Broadway) NYC Reviews and Tickets

"Langella responds to this dislocation with petulance, confusion, cruelty and anger...With the exception of a few unnecessary soliloquies, the dialogue is often powerful in its simplicity and Zeller effectively communicates a sense of existential horror lurking just below everyday chatter...Parts of the play can feel somewhat too pat...But the ending is both sentimental and searing and will probably devastate anyone who has seen a close friend or relative suffer from dementia."
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"This show is Mr. Langella’s. He makes us feel the gamut of emotions and when he is cruel, we feel the slice...This show is a must for anyone who is dealing with somebody with dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is a heartbreaking picture inside their mind. Mr. Langella is definitely my pick and winner for Best Actor in a play. This play will also be on the list of Tony nominations for Best Play. Well deserved and well worth watching."
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"The beauty and horror of seeing Florian Zeller’s play is that we’re taken inside the head of a man who’s losing his mind...Zeller has underwritten the supporting characters, and director Hughes is wise to keep those performances very understated...Zeller tells his story from Andre’s viewpoint, so it is bewildering — and not in a good way — when the playwright includes scenes that have the daughter conversing with other characters in Andre’s absence."
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"Langella at his best, yet again, and not to be missed...After all is said and done, you have Zeller’s provocative new play—already an international crowd-pleaser—and a monumental turn from the star. Hughes provides effective staging, but by this point in time one wonders whether directors have learned to simply step aside and watch Frank go."
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"His performance was better than the material. Zeller cleverly presents things from the confused point of view of the person with dementia...There’s more than a touch of Pinter lurking here...Doug Hughes’s direction is assured. Multiple short scenes are punctuated by flashing lights around the proscenium and loud strings, which becomes tiresome rather quickly. Go for the bravura performance by Langella and you won’t be disappointed."
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"How I wish I could say that Florian Zeller’s play lived up to the depths of its worthy ambition — much less to Langella’s silken heartbreak of a performance...All the other characters just feel like two-dimensional props for Langella’s performance. Hughes uses a flash of glaring light between scenes. The effect becomes more irritating than theatrical in a play that, for all its big intentions, never really touches the indignities and profundity of self-loss."
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"A fairly clever but chilly drama...Langella has a juicy role in André...But even the masterful Langella has difficulty making André’s dementia emotionally vivid, in a play written, directed (by Doug Hughes) and acted in a restrained, formalistic style...At the very end, Zeller tries to capture the agony of dementia. The play’s final image is striking, but the emotion seems an add-on, not something emerging naturally from the story we’ve seen."
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"Langella pivots skilfully between Lear-like torment and a lighter comic register...Though never less than affecting, the play itself feels a little neat, however. Once we’ve twigged what’s going on, 'The Father' doesn’t offer any further puzzles or surprises...Zeller has written a well-made play on a universally significant subject that stops short of following its protagonist into the darkest corners of mental breakdown."
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