Frank Langella delivers a masterful performance in a difficult, albeit timely play by Terrance Rattigan. While the story of Man and Boytakes place in 1934, one cannot ignore the similarities to Bernard Madoff and the current economic crisis. Frank Langella never fails to rule the stage as Gregor Antonescu, a manipulating financier who lacks a conscience and abuses not only his business dealings but his wife and especially his son, Vassily (Adam Driver). “Love is a commodity I can’t afford,” he tells Vassily.
While the first act should be enlightening and dramatic, it is talky and often sags. The play takes place in Vassily’s basement flat in Greenwich Village, well-detailed with Derek McLane’s precision. Vassily now calls himself “Basil Anthony,” plays piano in a nearby club, and has a girlfriend, Carol (Virginia Kull). He has been trying to forge a life for himself in New York after disowning his father five years earlier in London when he learned about Gregor’s unethical business. He is a needy young man, caught in a love-hate relationship with his father that affects his ambitions and his relationship with Carol. Now hearing that Gregor is planning to visit, Vassily is again filled with apprehension about seeing his father again.
Vassily leaves for work when his father’s aide-de-camp, Sven Johnson (Michael Siberry) shows up, followed by Gregor, darkly incognito. Gregor is facing a financial disaster and is planning to use his son’s flat to hide from the media and the FBI. He has one hope for salvation, Mark Herries of American Edison, played with confidence and equivocation by Zach Grenier. Gregor, through everything, remains elegant and cruel, prowling the stage, beautifully suited by Martin Pakledinaz with subtle mannerisms and sarcastic retorts. His depths of immorality even extend to the possibility of pimping Vassily out to Herries, a closeted homosexual, in exchange for an American Edison deal that will save his career and his fortune.
Act II is enlivened as Vassily and Gregor must seriously face each other. Gregor shows little love for damaged Vassily and considers him soft and weak-willed. When Gregor asks the boy to help him with a final escape, Vassily has the strength to refuse. With the press and FBI closing in, Gregor is left with only one option he can accept.
Michael Siberry and Zach Grenier are convincing hard-boiled businessmen, and Francesca Faridany as Gregor’s wife, the dramatic Countess Florence, is especially spirited. Brian Hutchinson is cast as Herries’ harried accountant and Virginia Kull is young and energetic as Vassily’s supportive girlfriend. Adam Driver is gawky and troubled as the son but fails to evoke pathos.
Maria Aitken directs the twists and talkiness with a firm hand, but Rattigan’s 1963 melodrama is often dense and lacks the needed emotion for this father-and-son drama. It is hard to feel empathy even for Vassily, and while all the characters add to the plot, it is Frank Langella who dominates the stage with his chill smoothless and crisp resonance, playing his adversaries and his aides as he would a chess game. His Gregor Antonescu is the abhorrent user you love to watch and hate.
