Tuesday, September 24, 2019

THE SON - REVIEW OF ZELLER’S PLAY AT DUKE OF YORK’S THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas

Florian Zeller is a prolific French writer who has made his presence felt in England and elsewhere in the last few years. He has written a trilogy about the family appropriately titled The Father, The Mother and The Son. The Father was produced last winter by Coal Mine Theatre, but I am not aware of other productions of his plays in Toronto.

The Son premiered in London last February at the Kiln Theatre and has now transferred to the Duke of York’s Theatre in the West End.

Zeller is a master of writing linear, apparently simple narratives that are dramatic and effective and extraordinarily moving. He always manages to hide a punch for the end, and it makes for exceptional theatre. All his plays are translated into English by the inimitable Christopher Hampton. 
John Light (Pierre), Amanda Abbington (Anne) and 
Laurie Kynaston (Nicolas). Photo: Marc Brenner
Anne (Amanda Abington) and Pierre (John Light) are a middle-class couple in Paris. They are separated and Pierre is living with Sofia (Amaka Okafor) with whom he has had a son. Pierre and Anne also have a teenage son, Nicolas (Laurie Kynaston) who has serious emotional problems.

When the play opens Anne has just found out that Nicolas has not attended school for several months while pretending to do so. He walks around doing basically nothing except pretending to attend classes.

The parents try to figure out Nicolas’s problems as he goes to live with his father and some tensions are created with Sofia. We realize slowly the depth of Nicolas’s emotional issues and watch his parents desperately trying to help. He ends up in a psychiatric facility. I will not give you any more details for fear of spoiling the plot especially the end of the play.

The plot is developed slowly but with a firm hand by the author and director Michael Longhurst. The scene changes on the single set are quick, fluid and inobtrusive. What counts is the narrative.

Kynaston does an excellent job as the disturbed teenager. He is basically lost and does not know why he is living. No one can reach the root of his troubles if in fact it is reachable. He has emotional outbursts coupled with manipulative behaviour and some acts of violence. A fine performance.

Abbington and Light as the separated couple bear the bitterness and scars of separation while trying to help their son. There are subliminal and expressed emotional currents that are dramatic and touching. Zeller creates sympathetic characters rather than being judgmental. Okafor as the new partner Sofia is asked by Nicolas the pointed question: did she know Pierre was married when she met him?   
 John Light and Amaka Okafor. Photo: Marc Brenner
Nicolas ends up in a psychiatric hospital that he hates, and the parents must choose between professional advice of a doctor (Martin Turner) and the pleas of their son to take him home. No parent should ever have to make that choice, but they must decide.

The set by Lizzie Clachan is a simple room, painted white with very little furniture. A door opens at the back showing a piano to indicate Pierre and Sofia’s apartment. Simple, direct and effective.

The Son deals with an apparently simple situation that is in fact complicated and emotionally wrenching. The production provides a highly moving and superb evening at the theatre.
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The Son  by Florian Zeller in a translation by Christopher Hampton continues until November 2, 2019 at the Duke of York’s Theatre, 104 St. Martin’s Lane, London, WC2N 4BG. The Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. greekpress.ca

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