The evening began with a minute’s silence after one of the Young Vic staff stood on the stage and informed the audience of the Queen dying. You could tell that many of them did not know. The play about a dying man began soon after, writes Michael Holland.
Ivo van Hove translated, adapted and directed Édouard Louis’ autobiographical Who Killed My Father, with Hans Kesting playing everyone.
Édouard is visiting his sick father, a man he tells everyone who asks that he hates. Even those that don’t ask are told.
He relives his life of a household filled with anger, recalling the smallest detail of those moments that can never be forgotten – A look, a word, a feeling left behind. Édouard boils his life down to the saddest of memories while telling himself he will not repeat the mistakes made by his father, or of his father before him.
At some point he sees that his dad had tried to not be the same as his own father, running off to see the world instead of going straight from school to the factory as everyone else did. But he is drawn back to live that life.
Kesting, alone on the bare stage, interacts with ghosts. We see how he reaches the conflict between hating and loving his father. He then recalls some of the sweet times; being bought the Titanic Collector’s Edition DVD, drives to the beach with just his father. We hear how his mother tells him to stop acting like a girl as the whole village is calling him names and shaming the family. He gets his revenge on her for those foul and hurtful words.
An accident at work means there is no money coming in and the government change the rules so the unemployed cannot get the medical help they need. Medication for constant back pain costs money, so the father has to return to back-breaking work or lose the little welfare money they get.
By the end, Édouard is on the side of the father and we discover that he has led his life fighting the injustice he saw metaphorically killing his father: ‘The ruling class broke your back all over again,’ he tells his dad as he screams out the names of the guilty.
Hans Kesting gives a superb performance in this unmissable work.
Young Viv, The Cut, SE1 until 24th Sept. Times: Tues – Sat 7.30pm; Sat matinee 2.30pm. Admission: £40 – £12.50.
Booking: www.youngvic.org
