Ostensibly The Father opens with a scene of disappointment. Andrew’s threatening behaviour with the new carer has put an end to well deserved breaks for his dutiful daughter Anne. But it isn’t that simple. Anne’s husband has a grievance on her behalf? But which husband? Two husbands alternate randomly along the timeline of The Father. Resentment is well disguised by each with sympathy for Anne’s desperate plight.
The award winning French author Florian Zeller was only twenty two at the time of writing. He evokes the world of the dementia sufferer by peppering panic, suspicion and confusion throughout the action. The degree of delusion borders on psychosis, yet the man is still there, able to recognise emotions but not their meaning, preferring to believe others must be losing their minds. As he becomes more ill he gets more and more medication, less and less truth. Our apprehension of the unpredictable. His ultimate fear of a care home uttered only in moments of despair are not his paranoia but a dim sense of reality. Many dementia sufferers have a degree of insight into their predicament. Not this father.
The studio space at the Old Fire Station works well for the tiny but effective shifting of props from scene to scene, making even the location ambiguous. The chronology is warped too. There is none to tease out. There is no key or legend to the characters. Like Andrew, we neither can grasp or gauge the real impact of the illness on Anne’s life, nor whether there can ever be a better solution.
The Father not only evokes the frustration and panic of Andrew’s world but also the devastating effect of those trying to do the right thing. The loss of inhibitions with dementia adds pain to Anne’s frustration. The favourite daughter, “the other daughter, the one I love”, is mysteriously absent. Anne listens forbearing, as the father idealises and grieves for the one he lost.
The problem of finding a carer whom her father will accept explores Anne’s predicament. Mostly they are not trusted or too patronising. When one he likes comes along, one that resembles his lost daughter, he will not let go of her. With each new hope the husband offers, “Maybe it will work out this time”. While Anne struggles with exasperation, the husbands are aggrieved. The potential undercurrents of elderly abuse are darkly hinted at.
For me there was a lack of depth in the playing of Andrew. Zeller’s script alone does not give him colour from his previous life to render him a sympathetic character, and Angus Fraser’s brittle performance lost an opportunity to make this production as dramatic as it is informative. However, director Ashley Harvey keeps up a gripping pace, and the cast of six for the most part conjure the threads of the plot which disappear and tangle like Anthony's train of thought with skill and passion.
Dementia