The Height of the Storm

C+

You may remember a play by Florian Zeller from a few seasons back, The Father, starring Frank Langella as an older man named Andre sinking into dementia. It captured the fractured nature of the experience and provided a great role for Langella. Now Manhattan Theatre Club has imported, virtually intact, the West End production of another Zeller play about a different elderly man with an increasingly tenuous relationship to reality. As if to imply that it is a riff on the earlier play, the play’s central character is again named Andre and again has daughters named Anne (Amanda Drew) and Elise (Lisa O’Hare, the only actor new to the cast). One important difference is that this Andre has a wife of 50 years named Madeleine. The fact that Andre and Madeleine are played by Olivier winners Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins is the main reason to see this elusive drama. There is a death in the family. Depending on which scene you are watching, your perception of who it is that died may shift. Andre was a noted author whose papers Anne is searching in the hope of finding a rumored diary. Madeleine meets a woman (Lucy Cohu) who claims to have been close to Andre many years before when he and his alleged friend Georges founded a literary journal and invites her for tea. Andre denies any knowledge of Georges. Anne is separating from her husband. Her younger sister Elise, who has a history of poor choices in men, introduces her new beau (James Hillier), who may or may not be an estate agent scheming to get Andre to sell his house. A floral arrangement arrives without a card. Anne’s perusal of the found diary provides shocking information that involves Georges. Andre finds the card that got separated from the flowers and reacts strongly. Unfortunately neither the contents of the diary nor the message on the card are shared with the audience. There is a touch of Pinter in Zeller’s technique.  Each time the scrim descended between scenes, the lady next to me asked whether the play had ended. The good news is that both Pryce and Atkins are at the top of their form, so if your primary goal is to see them in action, you will not be disappointed. However, if you do not like puzzlers that force you to make up your own version of the story, you will be frustrated. Judging from British reviews, many found the play extremely moving. Alas, I am not one of them. Anthony Ward’s set and costumes are evocative. Jonathan Kent’s direction is assured. Running time: one hour 20 minutes; no intermission. It seemed longer.

The Mother

C+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting the New York premiere of Florian Zeller’s drama about a middle-age woman with a severe case of empty-nest syndrome. You may remember another play by Zeller from a few seasons back, The Father starring Frank Langella as an older man sinking into dementia. The current play, actually written four years before The Father, is, in my opinion, considerably less artful. (The third part of the trilogy, The Son, just opened in London to enthusiastic reviews.) In both plays there are scenes presented in multiple variations. In The Father, everything was presented from the title character’s point of view, and charted his decline. In the current play, the motivation for the variations is less clear and the result is less involving. Fortunately, the woman who loves her son too much and her husband too little is played by Isabelle Huppert (“Elle,” Medea) , always a compelling presence. Chris Noth (Farragut North, The Best Man) is effective as her perplexed husband. The Son struggling for independence is well-played by Justice Smith (Yen). Odessa Young (Days of Rage) is also fine as The Girl. I think that Trip Cullman’s (Lobby Hero, Days of Rage) direction veers toward the gimmicky and values style over substance. Does the scenic design by Mark Wendland (Six Degrees of Separation) really benefit from a modern white sectional that seats 14 and sinks into the floor between scenes? Should there be a ridiculous number of prescription bottles scattered below it? Is there a point to placing Ms. Huppert on that sofa reading a book for 15 minutes before the play begins? The costumes by Anita Yavich (Fool for Love, The Legend of Georgia McBride) are apt. There are a few dramatic moments along the way, but there is an abstracted distancing feel to the production that dulls their impact. While I was happy to have the opportunity to see Ms. Huppert and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Noth, I was disappointed that the play never approached the quality of The Father. Running time: one hour 20 minutes, no intermission.

The Father ***

The universally extravagant praise from across the pond for French playwright Florian Zeller’s unnerving portrait of a proud man’s descent into dementia set my expectations a bit too high. That is not to say that this Manhattan Theater Club production starring the magnificent Frank Langella is not worth seeing. Quite the contrary. I just felt that his performance was better than the material. Zeller cleverly presents things from the confused point of view of the person with dementia. Andre (Langella), a retired engineer, has once again driven away a caregiver that his daughter Anne (a fine Kathryn Erbe) has hired to help him cope with his increasingly confused state. The audience is forced to feel Andre’s disorientation as we are presented with conflicting sets of facts and even different actors playing the same roles. Anne is either divorced, married to Pierre (Brian Avers) or moving to London with her new lover. Laura (Hannah Cabell), a prospective caregiver, reminds Andre of his mysteriously absent daughter Elise whom he always favored over Anne. Charles Borland (Man) and Kathleen McNenny (Woman) round out the good cast. There’s more than a touch of Pinter lurking here. Even Scott Pask’s set reflects Andre’s confusion as objects disappear from the elegant Parisian apartment between scenes. Catherine Zuber’s costumes are fine. 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. The audience reaction varied widely. The man next to me abruptly left midway through the play. The woman behind me was weeping softly. Running time: 90 minutes; no intermission.