Dementia as seen from the inside out. Harrowing, disorienting, and mesmerizing. Unexpectedly, refreshingly funny. Smash runs in Paris, London, and New York. Florian Zeller’s world-acclaimed The Father has arrived at the Pasadena Playhouse with an absolutely superb Alfred Molina in the title role.

The award-winning stage-and-screen star ignites the stage as a man so seemingly hearty and vital, he’s the last person you’d expect not to be in full in possession of his senses.

But first impressions can be deceiving, and it doesn’t take long to realize that not all is as it should be in André’s brain.

His adult daughter Anne (Sue Cremin) has arrived at her father’s Paris apartment, distraught at learning that his latest caregiver has, like those before her, thrown in the towel, no longer able to abide her employer’s accusations of petty theft, particularly since his most recent outburst had him going after her with a curtain rod.

Complicating matters is divorcee Anne’s decision to leave Paris for a new life across the Channel with her London-residing lover Antoine, and despite André’s insistence that he can do quite nicely on his own, it’s clear that such is no longer the case.

So far, so straightforward, and perhaps not all that different from plays and movies that have previously observed Alzheimer’s from an onlooker’s point of view.

Then comes The Father’s second scene, and any preconceived notions of how Zeller’s play, adeptly translated by Christopher Hampton, will unfold must be cast aside.

A complete stranger (Robert Mammana) claiming to be Anne’s husband Pierre insists that André must be imagining his still happily married daughter’s plans to leave Paris.

A woman (Lisa Renee Pitts) who calls herself Anne arrives looking nothing at all like the daughter we’ve only just been introduced to.

Welcome to the world of dementia, where total strangers claim to know you, where timelines are blurred, where everyone around you must be crazy because it certainly can’t be you.

Sequences seen through the eyes of those still in full possession of their senses, including the presumably real Pierre (Michael Manuel) and a young caregiver (Pia Shah as Laura) who Anne hopes will last longer than her predecessor, alternate with scenes told from an increasingly addled André’s point of view, adding up to 85 compelling minutes of what it’s like not just to live with but to be a person quite literally out of his mind.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the role of André is a humdinger, the kind that wins actors awards, a Moliere for a 90-year-old Robert Hirsch and a Tony for a 78-year-old Frank Langella among them.

At a vigorous and vital 66, Molina might seem an unexpected choice to play André, but there is method in master director Jessica Kubzansky’s madness, this outwardly hale and hearty André’s descent into madness made all the more heartbreaking given his relative youth.

The magnificent Molina invests André with equal parts feistiness and zest, a biting wit, and a growing rage at a world that no longer makes sense, and he is given terrific support by Cremin as a woman who finds a daughter’s love increasingly tested, by Manuel as a man who’s about had about enough of being patient, by Shah’s lovely, imperturbable Laura, and by Mammana and Pitts’ marvelous multiple turns as people who may be real or entirely figments of André’s imagination, you take your pick.

David Meyer’s gorgeously appointed apartment set adds to the play’s disturbing sense of disorientation by the subtle and not so subtle changes that take place during multiple pitch-black blackouts underscored by sound designer John Zalewski’s increasingly jarring original music, and lighting designer Elizabeth Harper and costume designer Denitsa Bliznakova merit their own kudos.

Casting is by Nicole Arbusto, CSA. Jenny Slattery is associate producer. Brad Enlow is technical director/production supervisor. Sarah Sahin is stage manager and David S. Franklin is assistant stage manager.

As eye-opener of a play with as thrilling a lead performance as you’ll see any time soon, The Father will not only hold you on the edge of your seat. You’ll be talking about what you’ve witnessed long after its devastating final scene fades to black.

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Ave., Pasadena.
www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
February 11, 2020
Photos: Jenny Graham

Tags: Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller, Los Angeles Theater Review, Pasadena Playhouse