THE FATHER's Christopher Hampton Says 'Idiotic' Workshop Process 'Dumbs Down New Plays'

Christopher Hampton, best known to Broadway audiences as the author of LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES and THE PHILANTHROPIST and as translator for Florian Zeller's current Tony-nominated The Father, had harsh words for the workshop process in theatre, while speaking at an event at London's Hospital Club.

As reported by The Stage, the playwright complained that requiring playwrights to satisfy an "army of bureaucrats" dumbs down new plays.

"Often it's idiotic," he continues. "All that work you have to put in to change things and flatter the dramaturgs and the script editors and the army of bureaucrats that now stand between the writer and the medium."

Click here for the full article.

THE FATHER, a new play by Molière Award winner Florian Zeller, in a translation by two-time Tony Award winner Christopher Hampton (Sunset Boulevard, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, God of Carnage), opened Thursday night, April 14, 2016 on Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. FriedmanTheatre (261 West 47th Street).

Three-time Tony Award winner Frank Langella returns to the stage in The Father, an all new Broadway production of the play which captivated Paris and London. Winner of the Molière Award, France's most prestigious honor for a new work of theater, and The Guardian's pick for Best Play of the Year.

Now 80 years old, André (Frank Langella) was once a tap dancer. He lives with his daughter Anne (Kathryn Erbe) and her husband Antoine. Or was he an engineer whose daughter Anne lives in London with her new lover, Pierre? The thing is, he is still wearing his pajamas, and he can't find his watch. He is starting to wonder if he's losing control.