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Note from the Director:

I was captivated by The Father from my first reading of it; it's uniquely structured to reach beneath the surface of daily life to articulate the fanciful, vague, fragile, disorienting state of an unpredictably shifting mind. Speaking from memories of caring for his own father, playwright Florian Zeller has written a moving, insightfully artistic exploration of that experience. This play freshly and resonantly interweaves dissipating strands of memory, identity, imagination, and relationship, and articulates it from the point of view of actually having dementia. It eloquently expresses the undulating experiential tapestry that is created when living with brain change.

In discussing this play with friends and colleagues, it has been rare to find anyone who has not been affected in some way by dementia in someone they love, often in family members. It can be a devastating, prolonged trek through a dark forest of profound loss. Fortunately, Zeller does not focus solely on grief. He shows irreplaceably precious flashes of humor, stunning rediscoveries within relationships, and exquisite moments when masks drop and primal personalities are unveiled. The Father allows us to experience dementia’s wild roller coaster ride without judgement.

Be prepared: you will feel Andrew’s confusion, frustration, and vulnerability in an unpredictable world. The play’s structure is fragmented and non-linear, with ever-shifting perspectives. Past and present, the real and the imagined, are blurred and blended. Time is not fixed, memory is fickle, objects and faces shift without warning, snippets of thought emerge and submerge without warning. It holds the mirror up to the very nature of dementia.

My goal as director has been to portray Andrew’s journey with empathy, truth, and sensitivity. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Jan Powell

Board of Directors