Who Killed My Father - Young Vic

[KP]

All tickets for Wednesday night's performance (7 Sept) are £5 on the Young Vic website.

[Steve]

Saw this tonight, and it's an absolute privilege to hear Hans Kesting give a performance in English.

He's a genius of an actor, able to light up this dark, humourless, mysterious play by fully inhabiting every scintilla of trauma, anger, melancholy, illness, forbidding silences of the characters in the play.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This play reminded me of the majestic and mysterious Poliakov TV series, "Perfect Strangers," in which Michael Gambon discovers an old black and white film of his father dancing, and can't fathom it, because he never remembered his father that way.

The mystery of Kesting's character's father, who dressed in women's clothing, but detested his son singing "Barbie Girl," who was appalled at his son's attraction to the movie, Titanic, but who got him the special edition as a present, is utterly fascinating in Kesting's telling of the story.

The downside is the lack of humour in the script, which is utterly sinister and serious, though Kesting wrests a few laughs through his astonishingly committed performance of "Barbie Girl," and the director utilises the oh-so-familar Titanic theme to amusing effect.

Overall, this is a gripping, serious, one-man play, which has an ending that is at once revealing and abrupt.

4 stars from me. A truly great opportunity to see one of the greatest actors in the world perform in English.

[G]

I went with four colleagues on Thursday. Found at least the first 45 minutes or so very very slow (and initially, I am embarrassed to say, confusing, as I could not follow which person in the family the actor was playing at various moments). I did not find the ending compelling - I can agree with the message, of course, but I am not sure it was conveyed in an interesting or innovative way - the list towards the end was entirely expected. I agree with the comment above that the tone felt very serious, and probably too much so in my view (even the more comedic moments - Barbie Girl - had a weight to them and little comic relief, which clearly was intended to show how the main character felt). Still, many captivating and tender moments.

My colleagues liked it more than I did, which is a relief since I proposed to go and see this.
The 4 start reviews are rolling in - they all saw the same performance as I did but found more in it than me, and it was interesting to read through them. 

www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/who-killed-my-father-review-at-the-young-vic-london-ivo-van-hove-hans-kesting
www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/09/who-killed-my-father-review-ivo-van-hove-young-vic
www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/who-killed-my-father-at-the-young-vic-review-edouard-louis-ivo-van-hove-b1024420.html

[Dave B]

That was a towering performance from Hans Kesting. We had centre of front row and that was just intense. Gripped from the start to the sudden end. Kesting looked to have thrown everything at it, visibly emotional and drained at his curtain call. Frankly, worth seeing for him alone.

[alessia]

Sept 10, 2022 22:43:54 GMT G said:

I went with four colleagues on Thursday. Found at least the first 45 minutes or so very very slow (and initially, I am embarrassed to say, confusing, as I could not follow which person in the family the actor was playing at various moments). I did not find the ending compelling - I can agree with the message, of course, but I am not sure it was conveyed in an interesting or innovative way - the list towards the end was entirely expected. I agree with the comment above that the tone felt very serious, and probably too much so in my view (even the more comedic moments - Barbie Girl - had a weight to them and little comic relief, which clearly was intended to show how the main character felt). Still, many captivating and tender moments.

My colleagues liked it more than I did, which is a relief since I proposed to go and see this.
The 4 start reviews are rolling in - they all saw the same performance as I did but found more in it than me, and it was interesting to read through them. 

www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/who-killed-my-father-review-at-the-young-vic-london-ivo-van-hove-hans-kesting
www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/sep/09/who-killed-my-father-review-ivo-van-hove-young-vic
www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/who-killed-my-father-at-the-young-vic-review-edouard-louis-ivo-van-hove-b1024420.html

I too found the first half hour or so a bit confusing, as the text kept switching from mother to grandmother and then father...I did struggle to follow. I am not convinced by the 'name and shame' final bit of the play, it was like a speech from a union member.  I thought it could have been done more subtly (or even skipped altogether). The best parts for me were the memories of the man's childhood with his father (the dance, the drive, Titanic) but I did also find that bits about masculinity had no nuance- it is one of the central themes of the story but there is a lot of repetition 'why do you behave like a girl' constantly repeated, we got it. Maybe it was the way it was translated from the french?

I hold Ivo personally responsible for giving me a terrible ear worm since last night-had not heard that silly song for 20 years and did not miss it lol. I thought the performance by Kesting was excellent throughout- the play is not that great in my view but it's worth seeing for him alone. In this it's a similar thing to Prima Facie, a 3 stars play with a 5 stars performance. 

[juicy_but_terribly_drab]

Agree with pretty much everything you've said alessia. The moments exploring his complicated relationship with his father when he was a child were the most interesting - this unknowable figure full of contradictions and trying to wrestle with that. This aspect reminded me of Mike Mills's films which I love so I really resonated with that. The rest felt kind of interminable and the political aspect towards the end felt disconnected from the rest of the play. and it felt like it was taking a lot of ideas but not really diving into any of them. Ultimately I guess I didn't really care who killed his father, at least as presented here, and was more interested in him trying to figure out who his father really was despite knowing you never truly can, but the play was never fully committed to exploring either thing.

[intoanewlife]

I wasn't a fan of this one.

I saw the first £5 preview and it was very much a £5 preview lol

Lots of flubbed lines and missed music/fx cues aplenty!

The play itself feels like a first draft and not at all like something that has already done a run elsewhere.

If it wasn't for the fantastic performance it would've felt like a bad Uni project that should've been laughed off the stage, which is a shame as even though the first 10 minutes was a bit confusing, I was then very much on board for the next hour and found it very involving and moving.

Then the smoke started...from then on, it frankly just turned to sh*t for me.

The smoke itself was nauseating to the point I just wanted to get up and leave. I don't know if they lessened the effect or not but it went on for at least 10 minutes which was just WAY overboard especially in such a tiny venue. We got it a minute in and it didn't back up the scene, it overpowered it and was just annoying and obnoxious.

Then the political ranting and abrupt ending which frankly was not only laughable but almost as nauseating as the smoke, tipped me over the edge.

The father/son storyline was summed up in what 2 throwaway lines?

They squandered what could've been quite a profound ending about the changes people go through with age, so they could sledgehammer some implausible political rant that was a maaaajor straw clutch.

Someone needs to give Ivo and the author a book on freewill!

It would've been much more dignified if they'd just admitted that frankly his Father killed himself and the son turned into the usual obnoxious activist who thinks they can blame everyone else for their problems.

For me this was Ivo's first major misstep.

2/5

[Forrest]

I really liked this.
Perhaps it came to me at the right time, but I was surprised by how touching I found it. It manages to be such a good exploration of, essentially, our own humanity, on so many levels - personal, political, who do we/can we blame for the way that we and our lives turn out, how do we at the same time fight and find a way to "meet" all of the contradictory expectations placed on us (and what is the "right" path to choose)... It may not look like too much on the surface, but this play really delivered a punch in the gut for me. And it owes a great deal to Kesting's wonderful performance.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}
The ending was a bit abrupt for me, but it lent a lot of complexity to the play as a whole. It kind of helped to close the scope of possibilities surrounding the question posed in the title: was it the politics, the burden of expectations or himself that ultimately killed the father.