The Son at Duke of York’s Theatre – review

Directed by Michael Longhurst, Florian Zeller’s poignant play deals with adolescent depression after the breakdown of the marriage of the parents. It is a remarkable heartbreaking piece.

The play first sees Anne (played by Amanda Abbington) trying to speak to her ex-husband Pierre (played by Laurie Kynaston) about their troubled son Nicolas (played by Laurie Kynaston) who she finds out has been playing truant at school for three months. She is afraid of him, of what he might do.

The decision is made that he will go live with his father and his new partner and their child. This does not make the situation better. Instead, it makes it much worse. At one stage we see Nicolas violently throwing stuff around his father’s house and then retreating under his duvet. Sometimes we see him furiously writing stuff on the wall.

His father’s new partner discovers a knife in the boy’s bedroom. It is clear from the bruises on his arms that he is self-harming. The father doesn’t know how to respond to his son’s antics and acts out in anger. After a failed suicide attempt, the son ends up in a psychiatric unit.

There are no easy answers in this play, no resolution, but that is life for people that have to cope with this and that is what makes the play so brilliant.

The parts are beautifully played by all the actors. This is such an important piece which shows how even with the help of the “professionals” there are no easy answers.

While this is a boy from a middle-class house that does have access to psychiatric assistance, so many teenagers that come from troubled backgrounds don’t have the access to this support.

This play is well worth watching. The Son run from 24 August – 2 November at the Duke of York’s Theatre on the West End in London.