Review by John Peter,
The Sunday Times, February 10, 1985
including the quote above.
"The Lonely Road is a chamber play about moral and sexual freedom - and its price, which is payable in the hard currency of loneliness. ... Julian (Anthony Hopkins), a famous painter, had deserted two women: Gabriele and Irene [Samantha Eggar]. Gabriele promptly married Wegrat, now also a famous painter, and gave him a son, Felix [Colin Firth], now 23, who is actually Julian's. As the curtain rises, Gabriele is ill and dying; Felix knows nothing... Julian now
wants a son, with the ostentatious intensity of those who leave the upbringing of their children to someone else.
"Colin Firth's Felix and Rupert Frazer's doctor stand out with nervy, febrile dignity".
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"The irony would be that Felix (played by Colin Firth) has no idea of his real father's identity and, as a result of his cosseted bourgeois upbringing, has himself determined on a life of wanderlust his father once enjoyed." [from Callan biography of Hopkins]
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Colin Firth on working with Anthony Hopkins:
"I learned so much from him. He gave me everything, he listened intensely--and yet it was him everyone looked at."
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"Julian meanwhile reveals that Felix is, in fact, his own son, and his only cause for existence since the collapse of his artistic hopes. ... [Julian,] then undergoing inner collapse after making his confession to Felix.
In Anthony Hopkin's performance, this is the one riveting episode in the production. He hands Felix a portrait of his mother, averting his own eyes from it; and subsequently describes not only how he abandoned her, but also his joy and total lack of remorse in regaining his freedom. Not for a moment does he demand sympathy; but he certainly achieves full and painful understanding."
