"If you appreciate what a masterful actor can do with a difficult part, you won't want to miss 'The Father' because Langella is on stage for most of its 90 minutes. Is Zeller's play as unmissable? Not quite so much...Though Langella and this production pretty much justify all the hype, the twilight zone setup tends to be be as confusing as it is clever. Consequently, you may leave the theater full of admiration for the acting and staging, but without having being really pulled all the way in."
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"Though far from uplifting, 'The Father' is a refreshing addition to the current Broadway scene—a one-set, low-fi, actor-driven exploration of an uncomfortable human truth...As Baby Boomers grow older and their children come of age, both groups will increasingly look to art for some means of coping. Using innovative storytelling to touch on familiar themes, Zeller has has endeavored to give them just that."
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"I cannot suggest you will enjoy 'The Father,' but I promise you, you will be moved—perhaps wounded…Watching a powerful patriarch brought low is a familiar piece of theater, but when Frank Langella takes the stage, we are in another dimension…One effect needs rethinking. Scene changes are fiercely disorienting—and yes, we get it—but it’s too much...It has long been fashionable to say that Shakespeare wrote all we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.' Until now."
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"It’s a smart and powerful piece of writing that is both surprising, funny at times, and deeply moving. Langella does a masterful job with this complex and unique role, holding back nothing, and giving it his all...The rest of the cast do a wonderful job...This MTC production is beautifully crafted, designed with great attention to detail and meaning...The direction of this cast by Doug Hughes is perfection...Unforgettable."
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"Under Doug Hughes’ exacting and brilliant direction, the ensemble cast successfully creates a pantheon of characters that, depending on one’s point of view, are real or unreal...Frank Langella’s performance as André is mesmerizing. He slowly peels away the layers of an insidious disease with a remarkable tenderness and vulnerability...Mr. Zeller constructs a fascinating puzzle for the audience to decipher."
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"Zeller’s play has an unnerving way of putting the audience in the mind of its central character...Director Dough Hughes resists sentimentality by keeping the staging lean and purposeful...But the second main reason to see 'The Father' is to experience Langella in the title role. The three-time Tony Award winner delivers a master class in character development. Reminding us that we are a myriad of experiences and emotions, he effortlessly vacillates between moments."
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"Langella, 78, has always been a dominating actor, a throwback to those grand old-time stars of physical stature, vocal richness, heightened elocution, and elegant gestures. These attributes can sometimes make him seem theatrical, even hammy, if you will, but they work perfectly for André, even if he never was the dancer he claims to have been. Langella’s innate grandiosity only makes the pathos of André’s descent into infantile dependency that much more tragically moving."
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"'The Father' cleverly employs the kind of effect perfected by absurdist playwrights, but this time for a specific, accessible purpose...Still, for all the freshness of the conceit and the cleverness of the construction, our interest flags whenever André is not on the stage...As in his Lear, Langella dominates...There is no character on Broadway now with whom we are made to feel more literal empathy."
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