Writer Florian Zeller, and his regular translator Christopher Hampton, have become a modern-day powerhouse amongst playwrights. Following the extraordinary “Height of the Storm” about grief and loss and the spell binding “The Father” about dementia, they have taken another modern theme, mental health amongst teenagers and produced an utterly brilliant new play “The Son”. Transferring from the Kiln Theatre into the West End, with much of the same cast, it is a totally absorbing and engaging one hundred and five minutes of exquisite drama.
This is more than a play about mental health issues. It is about the father and teenage son relationship that plays out every day across the country, in so many homes and young Nicholas’s depression and suicidal thoughts heighten the tension and conflict that so many families experience in the those hormonally charged years in secondary school. Zeller’s theatrical devise of scattering the stage with the debris of life which the characters by and large ignore, is a telling metaphor for the signs that are present but sometimes missed in these situations by the bluster, anger and love that bubbles around these households.
The tone is set from the beginning with an empty stage surrounded by clear white panelled walls, somewhere between a mental institution and a rather elegant household designed by Lizzie Clachan. Hanging over it is a large black bag waiting for its contents to be spilled across the stage and a stag’s head lays in the corner, a reminder that there is more than one father: son relationship at the heart of this play. When Nicholas enters a few minutes before the start and begins writing on the wall the message is clear, here is a young man crying out for help but will those around him see the signs? He writes “Life is weighing me down…. all mixed up in my head”.
Laurie Kynaston is the seventeen-year-old Nicholas, struggling to cope with the breakup of his parent’s marriage and torn between them as to where best to live. It is a wonderfully nuanced performance as his parents cajole him to explain himself and dismiss his attitude as “ever seen a teenager radiate happiness?” But as he sinks further, he subtly portrays the cries for help turning to lies of cover up and we all feel the need to help him, hug him and support him. Opposite him is John Light, magnificent as Pierre, the work obsessed father who has deserted his son for another woman. His love and concern spills into anger but there are lighter moments too as in the hilarious dad dancing sequence which feels like a turning point in their relationship.
The play seems to put most of the responsibility for his condition on the parents, without explaining what the real trigger for it was and it is a weakness in the play that Nicholas’s schools seem to offer no duty of care to their pupil in the months covered by the play and that the medical staff seem rather laid back over the right course of action. I would hope that in real life these two professional authorities might offer more guidance and support but here they dramatically contribute to the shocking, if perhaps inevitable, final scenes.
The female characters of the mother, Anne (Amanda Abbington) and the second wife, Sofia (Amaka Okafor) play secondary roles in the drama as passive bystanders to the torment the father and son are suffering. The Doctor is played by Martin Turner with a cool detachment. This keeps the focus on Pierre and his son Nicholas and Director Michael Longhurst gets the very best from these two fine actors.
I suspect that the underlying story is sadly very common but thankfully only occasionally develops into the scale of crisis portrayed but Zeller by shining a light on the issue in such a brilliant way may help us all spot the signs and seek the help needed to prevent these escalations. This is a play that fully deserves all the accolades that it will surely collect.
Reviewed by Nick Wayne
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