In two of the plays constituting his family trilogy, Florian Zeller depicts a difficult human situation until its almost inevitable conclusion, illustrating the evils that the love of loved ones, powerless, fails to resolve. The acclaimed French playwright writes psychological dramas bordering on tragedy, so all in a deceptively simple form.
The son seems a more “realistic” story than the Oscar-winning screenplay of The Father, the film that Zeller directed from his own text, which brilliantly embraces the subjective point of view of its protagonist suffering from dementia. (Although, without wanting to reveal anything, this process of mental space is not totally absent from the play…) A 17-year-old teenager, who is not well after the separation of his parents, asks his father to welcome him his home. This one has remade a nest that the presence of Nicolas comes to disturb. The recomposed family unit rather breaks down, while the teenager sinks inexplicably into a malaise, faced with the incomprehension of the adults who, despite their efforts, do not know how to help him.
The staging by René Richard Cyr is sober, but attentive. And if it doesn’t look like much, the décor by Pierre-Étienne Locas is eloquent. These walls framing the minimal evocation of a living room in neutral colors – where a simple loveseat turned around signals a change of apartment – will open out onto black as the story progresses. As if the pretense of normality of this family universe burst.
The first time we see the son on the Green Curtain stage, he is placed from behind. The title role of the play remains largely a black hole, prisoner of an abyss that he struggles to name, despite his heartfelt cries. In a changeable mood, Nicolas can switch suddenly into a crisis, between frowning, anger and despair. The young Émile Ouellette, who is making his debut here, forcefully imposes a muted presence, a stubborn suffering.
As for the female roles — which seem more one-dimensional in the play — Sylvie De Morais-Nogueira bestows a feverish emotionality on the suffering mother. While Stéphanie Arav portrays a thankless role with a little uneven accuracy, the new spouse stuck between the sinking of Nicolas and her own marital happiness to be preserved.
Despite its title, this piece is above all that of the father. A man who has to face, without instructions, the evil of living with an offspring from whom he had moved away. The excellent Vincent-Guillaume Otis lends a game full of nuances to this initially not very understanding character, who spouts platitudes to his unhappy child while he aspired to a model of fatherhood different from that which he has himself. suffered, then frustrated by a situation that escapes him. The sensitive interpreter gives an increasing emotional charge to this ultimately very human character, in all his shortcomings and his distress as a loving parent.