Three-Time Tony Winner Frank Langella on The Father's Heart-Breaking, Necessary Takeaway

Theatergoers enter Broadway houses to have their hearts broken and filled, and Florian Zeller's The Father beautifully delivers on both fronts.

Three-time Tony winner Frank Langella's welcome return to the Great White Way is sure to delight those who witnessed his work in Frost/Nixon, Fortune's Fool and Seascape (and perhaps more so, those who have not yet had the privilege of seeing him in action). At the same time, this Doug Hughes-helmed production devastates, zeroing in on the life of Andre (Langella), a retired tap dancer (or was he an engineer?) whose experience with dementia captures the very human fear of mortality.

"We're all going to die, and we're all worried about being out of control," Langella told Broadway.com at the play's Manhattan Theatre Club opening on April 14. "Those are universal themes in human beings, and certainly, when you get to be up in my years, so many friends around you are suffering with this disease or thinking about mortality. The play addresses it, but it addresses it in such an extraordinary way."

Translated by two-time Tony and Oscar winner Christopher Hampton, Zeller's Molière Award-winning drama is a brutally honest examination of disease and its effects on those who witness its unraveling of the human spirit (in this play's case, Tony nominee Kathryn Erbe, Charles Borland, Kathleen McNenny, Hannah Cabell and Brian Avers).

No matter one's age or relationship to dementia, The Father's lesson is absolutely essential. As Langella beautifully and heart-breakingly put it, "I suppose the greatest thing you could take away from it is not to waste a minute of your life."

The limited engagement is currently running at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through June 12 and is not to be missed.

Additional reporting by Imogen Lloyd Webber.