Authors often write a programme notes to explain their hopes for their piece but I’ve never read one that clarifies so precisely the intentions behind a play as writer Florian Zeller’s concise summary of his objectives with THE FATHER.From scene to scene different actors play the central characters; events repeat themselves in different circumstances and with conflicting outcomes and even the furniture in the room changes from moment to moment.
If all that sounds a muddle, that’s the idea. The play is intended as a demonstration of the confusing and scary way the world seems to someone in the early stages of dementia when even recognising loved ones becomes impossible and negotiating the maze of false and real memories is increasingly a challenge.
In showing the world as dementia sufferers sees it, rather than depicting the mind shifting within a stable setting, Zeller gives the audience an opportunity to experience what such unnerving slips of sanity might feel like for themselves.
Claire Skinner as Andre’s daughter manages to both reflect the different way she’s perceived and a little of the pain, which dealing with a parent who’s losing their mind, brings.
All good except, alas, the piece suffers from its presentation as a sleek, tasteful evening of smart West End theatre.
It’s a safe sanitised depiction of dementia without the terror, incontinence, blood, sweat and rage of the real thing. When the old man finally does break down in tears it’s within a beautiful white room in the arms of a beautiful woman. The central contrivance is intellectually engaging yet at ninety minutes it leaves you plenty of time for dinner before the train back to the suburbs and contains nothing to put you off your food.
Maybe dementia does feel like a series of perplexing encounters’ in a chic, sunlit apartment in lovely clothes. It certainly makes watching a man’s disintegration extremely palatable but I suspect the reality is messier and more horrible then that.
Reducing one of mental health’s cruellest and most heartbreaking tricks to a clever evening of tasteful theatrical slight-of-hand is disrespectful to those who suffer from the realities and ultimately makes for a passionless, pointless evening’s theatre. Even if it is immaculately performed and presented.
For some people the name Burt Bacharach conjures up a vision of soppy 1970’s elevator muzak. However for those musicians in the know, Bacharach has always been considered a legendary composer who transformed pop music with his innovative jazz rhythms and harmonies. It is therefore an absolute pleasure to see his music so thrillingly and modernly re-imagined in ‘Close to You: Bacharach Reimagined’ at the Criterion Theatre. The show was initially staged in New York and was followed by a successful run earlier this summer at the red hot