Miami’s Zoetic Stage kicks off its 16th season with The Mother, a dark comedy by French playwright Florian Zeller. Zeller writes in an almost postmodern, slightly existential style, and although he’s French, his plays tend to explode in England first. His trilogy, The Mother, The Father, The Son , has already produced one Academy Award–winning film (The Father, with Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Coleman).

Though it’s billed as a dark comedy, this production leans far more heavily on the dark than the comedy.

Before Pope Francis died, a reporter asked him about the biggest problem facing the world. He answered, with real humanity, that dang pope, he didn’t say war or refugees.

He said the biggest problem on the planet was a lack of opportunity for the young and loneliness among the elderly. That loneliness is one of the central themes of this 100-minute dramedy, along with the brutal emotional terrain of mental-health decline, specifically dementia.

The audience leaves with more questions than answers. For sure.

In fact, you might not feel great walking out of the theater. But the play stays with you. It needs digestion, and by the next morning, the impact becomes clearer.

The Mother is a unique, unsettling, strangely rewarding experience.

The Mother at Zoetic Stage at the Arsht

Aging is a privilege, we all know that, but at what point does that privilege begin to feel like a nightmare? All of us have lost people we love, and the loss of dignity at the end of life is a wound we carry. This play dives straight into those existential questions, staging scenes that bounce around the fractured mind of someone with dementia. The effect is disorienting, captivating and impossible to ignore.

You sit there thinking a bunch of wild thoughts. What scene are we in now? Did this already happen? Who is who? What’s real? Is this a dream? What the actual fuck?

And those questions feel eerily close to what might actually happen inside a deteriorating mind. The play is disturbing in the best way, inventive, unsettling, gripping.

Zoetic deserves credit for having the guts to bring such a challenging play to South Florida. Bravo to them. And kudos to the cast: eight-time Carbonell winner Jeni Hacker is extraordinary here, showing range and emotional voltage that carry the production. Stephen G. Anthony, as the Father, brings pitch-perfect timing and nuance. Brooklyn-based Allie Belttran, who plays the Girl, delivers a sharp, angsty performance that commands attention every time she appears.

The production team deserves its flowers too. The scenic design by Jacob Brown and Becky Montero’s lighting create transitions that feel like part of the narrative itself, heightening the instability of the main character’s world. And director Stuart Meltzer, Zoetic’s founding father, should be applauded. South Florida is lucky to have theater of this caliber.

We’re looking forward to the rest of Zoetic’s season.

So get out there and support local theater. It matters.

For more info and tickets click here.