Florian Zeller is a contemporary French novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Already in 2004, he won the “Prix Interallié” for his novel “The Fascination of Evil”. Zeller wrote a trilogy of plays “The Mother”, “The Father”, “The Son”. In 2020, the dramatist himself directed a film based on part of the trilogy, “The Father”, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. The film was awarded six Oscars, including Best Picture, while Zeller won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. “The Father” was also nominated for four “Golden Globe” awards and six British Academy Film Awards. The works of the dramatist have also been highly acclaimed in theatre: both “The Mother” and “The Father” received the prestigious Molière Award in France.
The everyday life of Anne, the main character in “The Mother”, is a cocktail of sleeping pills, diazepam and alcohol, which she tries to use in order to forget her depression, and also her house and family, which she had been living for. How should the mother reconcile with the maturity of her children? How should she learn to live her own life, to take care of herself, to love herself?
“It is a brilliant study of the peculiar case of the psychical organisation of the human soul, which may be compared to the patient cases described in good psychiatric works. Here, there is no attempt to declare a diagnosis, which prevails in that type of plays – that makes this play wonderful. There is no wish to shock. Here, pain and joy grow in between relations with those around us.” (Kirilas Glušajevas)
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