From a raspy, outspoken paterfamilias riddled with Parkinson’s (Robert Lindsay, in superb form) on down through the generations, Alexis Zegerman’s play offers an assemblage in feverish thrall to bitterness, frustration, and – in one especially telling case – unreciprocated passion.
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It’s hard to fault [Roxana] Silbert’s direction or the cast’s performances as they negotiate the confected philosophical debates and engineered flashpoints of Zegerman’s script. There’s much to enjoy here, as long as you don’t mind being taken for a ride.
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Even though the production feels too long, at well over two hours, with rambling dialogue, not enough action or big enough conflict, there is ambition in the writing that must be admired.
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It’s all hermetically contained, the fundamental question, “Why should we care?”, never adequately answered...There’s committed and commendable work from the actors, though.
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The performances are sharp and assured — let’s face it, any play with Robert Lindsay at its centre has a head start over the competition...Yet the script keeps wandering off in too many directions. Zegerman has a habit, too, of waving her research in our faces.
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The story, from playwright and actor Alexis Zegerman, introduces plenty of big ideas to the febrile if familiar set-up...But the script feels slowly paced and shapeless, lacking a clear dramatic thrust.
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Although long, at two hours and 40 minutes, the play rarely sags, largely because it sustains a gripping feeling of impending crisis...as a portrait of blended family dysfunction it is highly enjoyable, while also raising provocative questions about the limits of science.
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If it all sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Thankfully, Lindsay is a more than capable anchor. From him, director Roxana Silbert cajoles a performance of unexpected fragility, pathos puncturing the fearsome gravitas.
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