The Father

The Father: A Tragic Farce

by Florian Zeller, translated by Christopher Hampton

January 30 – February 16, 2025

Virginia Repertory Theatre’s Theatre Gym, 114 W Broad St, Richmond, VA 23220

Now 80 years old, André was once a tap dancer. He lives with his daughter, Anne, and her husband, Antoine. Or was André an engineer, whose daughter Anne lives in London with her new lover, Pierre? The thing is, he is still wearing his pyjamas, and he can’t find his watch. He is starting to wonder if he’s losing control. Winner of the 2014 Molière award for France’s best play, The Father makes us see things as if through the confused eyes of André, as he struggles to make sense of a progressively befuddling world.

A play that constantly confounds expectations and works almost like a thriller, with a sinister Pinteresque edge…full of guile, particularly in the way it toys with time, yet is also simplicity itself, and is never tricksy. The Father constantly makes you question the truth and the nature of reality…an astonishingly unguarded play about the cruelties of love and the limits of patience, and the way child-parent relationships become inverted as old age creeps up and mugs us.