Frank Langella Sets Broadway Return In ‘The Father’

UPDATE 11:25 A.M.: Frank Langella comments, exclusively, below.

It’s Frank Langella and it’s The Father but it’s not Strindberg’s modern classic that will bring the three-time Tony winner and Oscar nominee back to Broadway next spring. Langella will star in the American premiere of a new play by Florian Zeller, translated by Tony winner Christopher Hampton (Sunset Boulevard, Les Liaisons Dangereuses) and directed by Tony winner Doug Hughes (Doubt).

Langella (Frost/Nixon, The Americans) will play Andre, a retired dancer living with his adult daughter Anne and her husband. Or he might be a retired engineer receiving a visit from Anne, who has moved away with her boyfriend. Strangers keep turning up in his room — and where has he left his watch? Cited by the Guardian as Best Play of the Year, The Father won the Molière Award, France’s most prestigious honor for a new work of theater. The Guardian called it “an astonishingly unguarded play about the cruelties of love and the limits of patience.” The Telegraph said its portrayal of dementia is “acute, absorbing and distressing.”

“I agreed to do this play even before I had reached the last page,” Langella told Deadline. “It is a devastating subject told in a highly original way. Zeller is a first class writer and Chris Hampton has served him beautifully.” Langella played the title role of Sir Thomas More in Hughes’ 2008 Roundabout Theatre Co. revival of A Man For All Seasons.

A limited-run West End transfer of The Father will be presented this fall at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre by Theatre Royal Bath Productions and the Tricycle Theatre, following debut runs at the Ustinov Studio in Bath and the Tricycle Theatre in London. The Broadway run will begin previews on March 22, 2016 and open April 12 at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Additional casting, creative team, and other information will be announced in the coming weeks.