London’s Current Opera Offerings Apparently Chosen by E.L. James, Directed by Roman Polanski, with Chris Brown as Consultantby Randi / July 2, 2015
The show “Everyman” is about probably every human’s nightmare – facing untimely death – but the first 10 minutes are literally my nightmare. It’s a loud rave in a dark, creepy, possibly swanky club with inst-inst-inst music and well-to-do assholes doing drugs and taking selfies of how messed up and fun and awesome they are while lights are flashing and people are drinking more than they’re breathing and tossing their garbage on the floor and it’s just all awful and that’s my nightmare.
But it’s an effective opening of indulgent horrors, showing how our main character, Everyman (Chiwetel Ejiofor), has a certain kind of unaware, boorish, privileged lifestyle, spending his money and not really caring about much else. He passes out at the club and wakes up as the cleaning woman (who turns out to be God, naturally) is mopping up the disgusting floor, and he offers her some money to apologize for her job. But then he meets a man in a white jumpsuit who introduces himself as Death (Dermot Crowley, so good), and announces that Everyman’s time is up. This play is about how Everyman, sometimes horrifyingly called ‘Ev’ like it’s his actual name, deals with his impending doom.
“Everyman” is an update of the 15th century morality play titled “Somonyng [Summoning] of Everyman”, an allegory about humanity and death and how you have to do good deeds to attain salvation. It sounds like a great piece prime for updating to our modern times, with the lesson that no matter what, all you are left with to present to God for final judgment is a recounting of your good deeds.
It’s such an overdone topic, man’s struggle with his own mortality, and so this update needed to be handled in a fresh way to be worth doing. I assumed that the revival of it would bring about a relevant reimagining that made it original. But despite the we’re so cool vibe of the opening, nothing Everyman did in the face of death was new or original. He freaked out, and that was pretty much it.
One interesting aspect was that the original 15th text was rhyming, so this modern update also rhymed. But oof. They should have called Lin-Manuel. Some of the rhymes were embarrassing. One line went something like “Ev, mate, we’re totally your fandom, but all of this is just…random.” I apologize to the person sitting in front of me for throwing up on you.
So Everyman was super upset, naturally, and tried to get out of it. He tried to get his family to vouch for him, then his friends, none of whom seemed to care that much.
Everyman’s mother was good but had awful lines. She made jokes about her daughter-caregiver (the good child, as it were) being a lesbian, and the audience loved it, which was super weird. How messed up is that? It didn’t even contribute any meaningful character development or anything, just cheap laughter. Another joke was about how the daughter was vegan and how at least Ev doesn’t have to cook for a vegan, thank his lucky stars, or eat tofu scramble. The audience DIED at the tofu scramble joke. Again, didn’t add anything, just was super lame and cringeworthy. I was really surprised that they took this ancient work and updated it not with worthwhile insights but with cheap jokes, especially when the play is about using your life as best you can, being a good person while you are alive, and yet the only person in the show being a good person is used as a punching bag. And the most bothersome part is that this wasn’t done intentionally! It wasn’t like the creative team realized at all what they were doing, as clever as that could have been – a show about shitty people wasting life while making fun of the only person trying to do good could send a really powerful message about how we treat and think of others. But that wasn’t what they were going for here, it was clear, because the very brief jabs were clearly just to make the audience laugh, not to imply any deeper meaning. Which is a missed opportunity for actual depth.
No, this show was all about Everyman’s reaction to his death, not about other characters’ interactions or reveals. He freaked out pretty consistently. After trying to persuade the people in his life to help him, he tried to use his vast material wealth as a thing that God would give a shit about; obviously that backfired. Finally, he befriends a homeless man and learns a tiny bit about being a good person? But not really. I mean he realizes that he wasn’t much of one.
The most promising scene came when Everyman says goodbye to the embodiments of all his senses and abilities (taste, touch, knowledge, &c.). It was like the human-live action version of “Inside Out”. That’s a really cool idea but I wish it was better done. After like 100 minutes of loud tearful desperate cries with no level changes, no variation, when he just continued yelling crying at his attributes it wasn’t as heavy as it should have been. Chiwetel was good, and it was wonderful to see this great actor live onstage (long ‘i’ live; he doesn’t live). But the performance and the show seemed pretty one note, trying to sustain an intensified level of energy that just felt flat with no variation.
Yet after Everyman exhausts all his avenues of redemption and faces Death for good, Death tells him that his struggle really touched him. I was confused. How was his reaction different from anyone else’s? It seemed textbook, to react to death with unhappiness and anger, freaking out, trying to make bargains, trying to get people in your life to stand up for you. Like what else do people do? I didn’t get why Death, and also God, actually, (the cleaning woman, remember, which was clever) were impressed by his reaction. They still killed him, but they maybe felt bad about it? It was weird!
A lot of people seemed to be really touched by this story, which surprised me. Like I think I heard crying. Maybe I just think about this dreary stuff more frequently than others, so it wasn’t a novelty? I’m way existential. But no, everyone thinks about it at least a tiny bit, and nothing in this show offered anything new to the subject. Be a good person, it said, do good deeds, but even if you don’t, we will be impressed with how much you don’t want to die? I think that’s what it was saying.
It’s such an overdone topic, man’s struggle with his own mortality, and so this update needed to be handled in a fresh way to be worth doing. I assumed that the revival of it would bring about a relevant reimagining that made it original. But despite the we’re so cool vibe of the opening, nothing Everyman did in the face of death was new or original. He freaked out, and that was pretty much it.
One interesting aspect was that the original 15th text was rhyming, so this modern update also rhymed. But oof. They should have called Lin-Manuel. Some of the rhymes were embarrassing. One line went something like “Ev, mate, we’re totally your fandom, but all of this is just…random.” I apologize to the person sitting in front of me for throwing up on you.
So Everyman was super upset, naturally, and tried to get out of it. He tried to get his family to vouch for him, then his friends, none of whom seemed to care that much.
Everyman’s mother was good but had awful lines. She made jokes about her daughter-caregiver (the good child, as it were) being a lesbian, and the audience loved it, which was super weird. How messed up is that? It didn’t even contribute any meaningful character development or anything, just cheap laughter. Another joke was about how the daughter was vegan and how at least Ev doesn’t have to cook for a vegan, thank his lucky stars, or eat tofu scramble. The audience DIED at the tofu scramble joke. Again, didn’t add anything, just was super lame and cringeworthy. I was really surprised that they took this ancient work and updated it not with worthwhile insights but with cheap jokes, especially when the play is about using your life as best you can, being a good person while you are alive, and yet the only person in the show being a good person is used as a punching bag. And the most bothersome part is that this wasn’t done intentionally! It wasn’t like the creative team realized at all what they were doing, as clever as that could have been – a show about shitty people wasting life while making fun of the only person trying to do good could send a really powerful message about how we treat and think of others. But that wasn’t what they were going for here, it was clear, because the very brief jabs were clearly just to make the audience laugh, not to imply any deeper meaning. Which is a missed opportunity for actual depth.
No, this show was all about Everyman’s reaction to his death, not about other characters’ interactions or reveals. He freaked out pretty consistently. After trying to persuade the people in his life to help him, he tried to use his vast material wealth as a thing that God would give a shit about; obviously that backfired. Finally, he befriends a homeless man and learns a tiny bit about being a good person? But not really. I mean he realizes that he wasn’t much of one.
The most promising scene came when Everyman says goodbye to the embodiments of all his senses and abilities (taste, touch, knowledge, &c.). It was like the human-live action version of “Inside Out”. That’s a really cool idea but I wish it was better done. After like 100 minutes of loud tearful desperate cries with no level changes, no variation, when he just continued yelling crying at his attributes it wasn’t as heavy as it should have been. Chiwetel was good, and it was wonderful to see this great actor live onstage (long ‘i’ live; he doesn’t live). But the performance and the show seemed pretty one note, trying to sustain an intensified level of energy that just felt flat with no variation.
Yet after Everyman exhausts all his avenues of redemption and faces Death for good, Death tells him that his struggle really touched him. I was confused. How was his reaction different from anyone else’s? It seemed textbook, to react to death with unhappiness and anger, freaking out, trying to make bargains, trying to get people in your life to stand up for you. Like what else do people do? I didn’t get why Death, and also God, actually, (the cleaning woman, remember, which was clever) were impressed by his reaction. They still killed him, but they maybe felt bad about it? It was weird!
A lot of people seemed to be really touched by this story, which surprised me. Like I think I heard crying. Maybe I just think about this dreary stuff more frequently than others, so it wasn’t a novelty? I’m way existential. But no, everyone thinks about it at least a tiny bit, and nothing in this show offered anything new to the subject. Be a good person, it said, do good deeds, but even if you don’t, we will be impressed with how much you don’t want to die? I think that’s what it was saying.
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Come From Away Comes to London: Continuing its Global Takeover Even Though it’s Just Okay
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Come From Away, which officially opened in London this week.
You know how Oslo won the Tony for Best Play? And we were like…how? It’s because people loved the story it told, about the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PLO. It is riveting subject matter that reminds you of an important time in history. You’re moved by the memories and by realizing that all of this actually happened, and so you feel a connection with the humanity of the history. And so audiences leapt to their feet quicker than you can say ‘she’s from Haifa’, even though the play itself was actually mediocre. People couldn’t separate the true story from how the play told it. Well I never thought I’d say this, truly never, but, same for Come From Away. Well, not exactly same – Come From Away is much better. The true story it tells about Canadian kindness during 9/11 is incredible and moving. But the actual show, the actual portrayal of it, is just okay. The magic comes entirely from knowing it’s a true story.
And yes, there is magic. When telling this story, about how the sleepy town of Gander, Newfoundland, welcomed thousands of stranded passengers on 9/11 when U.S. airspace closed, it would be impossible not to provide moments of real emotion. But those emotions come as a result of simply telling this story, even if someone were standing onstage simply reading news bulletins. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good show. It’s an entirely enjoyable theatrical experience. Yet from all the raves, you’d think it was great. But a great show takes a good story and then also presents it well, in an interesting, artistic way. This show has found such success because it took such a good story, but there’s no interesting or artistic creativity that lifts the material, at least not in any other aspect than the precise, impressive direction of a hard-working ensemble. Since it’s telling an excellent story, it doesn’t seem to matter how it’s presented, just that it is being presented. There’s not enough art being made.
One big problem for me is the score. Most of the music fails to fulfill the main requirements of a musical score: to move the story and/or the character development forward in a way that couldn’t be achieved in the same way without music. It all feels very perfunctory. Music has the ability to add emotional depth to words and story, but this score fails to augment the action most of the time. And almost none of it is used to delve into characters. Since the versatile ensemble constantly shifts so everyone plays multiple characters, it ends up feeling like a nondescript mass of people instead of individuals we’re supposed to care about. The one song in the whole show that is entirely intended for character depth – the best song in the show, “Me & The Sky” – consequently feels out of place. When the singer, Captain Beverly Bass (the fantastic Rachel Tucker), begins by sharing her childhood memories, it feels like it was lifted from a different show. This song, superb as it is, has the same problem as the best song from the musical Catch Me If You Can, “Fly Fly Away”: it’s the strongest melody overall, so clearly that’s why it couldn’t have been cut, but it is out of place. It doesn’t go with the rest of the score. No other character gets a solo that shares their entire life story or reveals profoundly what they’re thinking and feeling at this moment, other than the fear they directly tell us they’re feeling.
That’s my other issue, that the story is primarily told directly to the audience, with the characters telling us what happened, what they did, what they thought and felt. Unlike most shows, where we are watching other people live the story, and learning about them through action and dialogue with each other, their dialogue is with us. That’s a valid structure, sure, but subverting the usual mantra of ‘show, don’t tell’ lowers the ability to achieve real character development and relationships between the characters if we don’t get to really see them interact with each other. And what is Come From Away if not a show about the relationships and connections that form between these real people? It loses the chance to show us this most important and compelling part of the story and instead merely tells us that they connected. The best characters, Nick and Diane, who meet and fall in love in Gander, come off the best but that’s mainly because I knew that they ended up together (which like, give them an entire show, you know? Incredible story). It would have been lovely if not breathtaking to see them fall in love by talking to each other more instead of narrating it to us.
Audiences were going to adore this story no matter what was done with it, and they continue to do so. But it’s a shame that such a story will never get the stronger bones it deserves in terms of book and score. And even though they had a slam dunk on their hands, the creators still added cheap laughs. Too often, when creators don’t trust their material to stand on its own, or just to hedge their bets, they insert unnecessary ‘jokes’ or sight gags to get a random guaranteed laugh from the audience. It’s clearly appealing to the lowest common denominator and betting on an unsophisticated audience for cheap laughs. Come From Away does this, for one example, with the Spanish teacher who flamencos into the scene in full costume and says some naughty things in a bad accent. Why? It’s like a race to the bottom but for musical theatre.
Obviously Come From Away is not a bad show, it’s very decent. But for a musical that is guaranteed to sweep the Oliviers this season, it should be better. The story is amazing, and it’s hard not to focus on that in order to see that the bones of the show aren’t as strong as its subject matter. You have to recognize that a play is more than just the story it tells. The art form is the telling of that story. And while the story here is astonishing, the telling is merely good.
INFORMATION
Come From Away is at London’s Phoenix Theatre, probably forever.
It runs 100 minutes with no interval.
The Phoenix Theatre needs a refurb.
Programmes are £5 and are enormous.
The Inheritance Part 1: A Provocative, Poignant Epic for Modern Times
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Inheritance, Part 1, which has transferred from the Young Vic to the West End’s Noel Coward Theatre, playing there until January 19.
I have put off seeing The Inheritance for actual years now. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but Matthew Lopez’s two-part, sweeping look at today’s culture of gay men, and how they grapple with their position in life compared to the generation that came before them and paved the way, is…long. It’s really long. And it’s in two parts, so you have to go back to the theatre another night to finish the story. And I got things to do! So I put it off. If I’m going to sit through two plays at nearly four hours each, I said to myself, about gay men and AIDs and stuff, I’m going to see Angels in America. (It might sound pretty narrow-minded to compare to the two works, like ‘oh they’re both about gay men so you’re going to compare them, you bigot’ but please, tell me of another eight-hour play in two parts, I’ll wait.) Also, the hype was ludicrous. I assumed there was no way this is ‘the best play of the year, and of next year too, probably’, to quote a mainstream critic (one of those). But I finally decided to bite the bullet and start this epic journey into hours and hours of theatre, and you know what? It’s probably the best play of the year, and of next year too.
I have put off seeing The Inheritance for actual years now. It’s not that I didn’t want to see it, but Matthew Lopez’s two-part, sweeping look at today’s culture of gay men, and how they grapple with their position in life compared to the generation that came before them and paved the way, is…long. It’s really long. And it’s in two parts, so you have to go back to the theatre another night to finish the story. And I got things to do! So I put it off. If I’m going to sit through two plays at nearly four hours each, I said to myself, about gay men and AIDs and stuff, I’m going to see Angels in America. (It might sound pretty narrow-minded to compare to the two works, like ‘oh they’re both about gay men so you’re going to compare them, you bigot’ but please, tell me of another eight-hour play in two parts, I’ll wait.) Also, the hype was ludicrous. I assumed there was no way this is ‘the best play of the year, and of next year too, probably’, to quote a mainstream critic (one of those). But I finally decided to bite the bullet and start this epic journey into hours and hours of theatre, and you know what? It’s probably the best play of the year, and of next year too.
Granted, I have only seen Part 1 so far. You can see both parts in one day if you want, but ain’t nobody got time for that. (Or energy. How do the actors do it? are they spidermen?) I’m really glad I scheduled this extra time in between so I can sit with and think about Part 1 and give it the due it deserves. As a standalone play, Part 1 was sensational, and I’m honestly wowed. I really can’t believe that I would be willing to see it again. For the first time in my life, I bought the script of the play instead of the programme. It’s that good. I made a sort-of joke about Angels in America above, but The Inheritance is truly the clear successor to Angels, not just because they are about the same demographic, but – and gird your loins, people who hate tautologies – because it is a successor to Angels. That’s what it’s about – what gay men living today have inherited from the generation before and what they have to do to honor their memory and their sacrifice. So REALLY, it’s like a four-part 16 hour play. Just kidding. But it’s important to know where gay men of the previous generation have been in order to understand what these gay men of our generation are thinking about when they think about honoring those who came before them. Both plays bear crucial witness to the gay culture of their time.
The idea of honoring the past without getting trapped by it runs through all the multiple layers and character arcs in this play. Not only are there so many vibrant layers to the story that all seem compelling in their own right, there’s also an homage to the novel Howards End woven into the frame of the show. It begins with a group of male writing students bouncing ideas off of each other, guided by their teacher Morgan, a representation of Howards End author E.M. Forster (the M was for Morgan), who hid his homosexuality from the public (his famous works about homosexual themes were published after his death). Morgan and the students brainstorm ways to start the story, eventually focusing on one student’s idea and snowballing. As an opening gimmick, this kind of annoyed me at first, but it really does pay off. We delve into the story and just when you forget that it’s anything but real, it returns to Morgan leading the writing process.
The story being written tells of Eric Glass (Kyle Soller, wonderful) and Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap, my choice for a supporting actor Olivier), a gay couple living in New York in Eric’s Holocaust-surviving grandparents’ great apartment. If you take that central idea and think of it like a small glass sphere, the play is like taking a hammer to that glass and watching all the thousands of shards shower away from it. There is so much happening and it all is part of the same whole, all kinds of side stories you think maybe should have been cut for time, until you realize they are all necessary to add to this realistic, vivid world they’re creating onstage. Eric is an actually decent guy, the kind you root for even without knowing him too well. He’s a better person than he believes himself to be, a sensitive, thoughtful soul. Toby is vivacious, hilarious, and altogether Too Much. He’s written a well-known book that is getting transformed into a Broadway play, because his head needs to get bigger. A chance meeting with a younger gay man, Adam (Samuel Levine, responsible for the ‘male nudity’ warning), throws a wrench into Eric and Toby’s happy life together, especially when Adam is cast in Toby’s play.
While Adam and Toby workshop the play out of town, Eric befriends Walter, an older gay man who was previously an acquaintance but becomes one of the most important people in Eric’s life. Walter lived through the ‘80s AIDs epidemic and tells Eric, in probably the longest (and most moving) monologue in theatre history, what it was like. And not just ‘what it was like’ like ‘oh, it was awful,’ but opening up and really showing the history to Eric like it’s a tangible thing you can hold and show someone. In a brilliant move, Walter is played by the same actor as Morgan (Paul Hilton), guiding the young men and helping them as much as he can. At the end of Act 1, Walter explains to Eric that his partner, the billionaire Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey, one of my faves), wanted to run away from the city during the epidemic and ignore it, along with their friends. But Walter in his kindness and empathy couldn’t, and so while Henry traveled, Walter opened up their country house to let their friends, and friends of friends and whoever needed to, have a serene place to die.
Walter’s friendship, guidance, and memories clearly make Eric even more thoughtful and considerate of (to quote another of this year’s ‘best of’(TV Edition)) what we owe to each other, and what we owe to the past and to the future. The inheritance of the title is that recognition of the importance of memory and respect in the culture. In a whole new layer to the story, it also refers to a Howards-End inspired deathbed bequeathment of important property that, like in its source material, gets infuriatingly disregarded. And as part of that property, it refers to the responsibility that these young gay men have inherited from the previous generation, the responsibility that every demographic or culture or race owes to their forebears: to recognize their struggles and understand what they went through so that you can live the life you’re living and make things better for the next group.
I know, it sounds like a lot of heavy material. And it is, and you’ll forking SOB, especially at the final scene of Part 1. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll save your hardest cries for what’s supposed to be a kind of funny moment – Eric’s friends’ 2016 Election Returns Watch Party (sigh (too real)). But you also laugh a whole lot, especially at Toby’s lines and his incredible physicality. It’s like he’s dancing through his character’s lines while fully becoming him and it is incredible. The ensemble is wonderful, and even though most have not much to say in Part 1, the cast remains onstage the entire time. Stephen Daldry’s direction has truly never been cleverer or sharper. It’s his best work yet. There is absolutely no set, other than a raised platform in the middle. No painted backdrops, no nothing. There are barely any props (save for the frequent wine glasses, the odd chair, the Hillary balloon). Yet the stage pulsates with life. The ensemble sits around the platform and watches the action, sometimes chiming in with suggestions to the author (reminding you of the framing device, which I still don’t know how I feel about). Most importantly, the ensemble moves with the story in a way I have never seen before. When you react internally to a line reading, the ensemble will react physically in a way that makes complete sense. They seem to be constantly moving but not in a distracting way, rather in a totally natural, necessary way that adds to the import of every scene. It’s like a reminder of something, maybe that your actions affect lives around you, or that you’re never alone.
Going into Part 2, I’m eager to see more of John Benjamin Hickey’s Wilcox, who was only in Part 1 for a portion of the time, and of course I’m excited for the ‘cameo’ by Vanessa Redgrave. But even more than seeing these stars, I can’t wait to get back into this world. I’m honestly still shook by the story and anxious about where things left off. This play felt like a long book that becomes important to you as you read along, the kind where you feel it in your soul and worry about the story and the characters for life, even though you know it’s not real. That the Inheritance Part 1 accomplished that is a testament to the genius of Matthew Lopez, as well as the pitch-perfect direction and the great acting that brought me fully into their world.
INFORMATION
The Inheritance ends its run at the Noel Coward Theatre on January 19 so hurry, or wait to see it on Broadway because it is definitely going.
Tickets are pretty easy to get, especially using TodayTix (which runs their rush ticket system). I got a £15 ticket (talk about value for money) in the Royal Circle, fifth row in and on the right side of center, and it was a perfect view. Too far to the extreme sides will be okay but a little restricted. The audience was pretty good, but actually the staff was awful. I could hear them talking in the lobby really loudly, proving my opinion that Delfont Mackintosh theatres and staff have to undergo a whole rehaul.
The idea of honoring the past without getting trapped by it runs through all the multiple layers and character arcs in this play. Not only are there so many vibrant layers to the story that all seem compelling in their own right, there’s also an homage to the novel Howards End woven into the frame of the show. It begins with a group of male writing students bouncing ideas off of each other, guided by their teacher Morgan, a representation of Howards End author E.M. Forster (the M was for Morgan), who hid his homosexuality from the public (his famous works about homosexual themes were published after his death). Morgan and the students brainstorm ways to start the story, eventually focusing on one student’s idea and snowballing. As an opening gimmick, this kind of annoyed me at first, but it really does pay off. We delve into the story and just when you forget that it’s anything but real, it returns to Morgan leading the writing process.
The story being written tells of Eric Glass (Kyle Soller, wonderful) and Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap, my choice for a supporting actor Olivier), a gay couple living in New York in Eric’s Holocaust-surviving grandparents’ great apartment. If you take that central idea and think of it like a small glass sphere, the play is like taking a hammer to that glass and watching all the thousands of shards shower away from it. There is so much happening and it all is part of the same whole, all kinds of side stories you think maybe should have been cut for time, until you realize they are all necessary to add to this realistic, vivid world they’re creating onstage. Eric is an actually decent guy, the kind you root for even without knowing him too well. He’s a better person than he believes himself to be, a sensitive, thoughtful soul. Toby is vivacious, hilarious, and altogether Too Much. He’s written a well-known book that is getting transformed into a Broadway play, because his head needs to get bigger. A chance meeting with a younger gay man, Adam (Samuel Levine, responsible for the ‘male nudity’ warning), throws a wrench into Eric and Toby’s happy life together, especially when Adam is cast in Toby’s play.
While Adam and Toby workshop the play out of town, Eric befriends Walter, an older gay man who was previously an acquaintance but becomes one of the most important people in Eric’s life. Walter lived through the ‘80s AIDs epidemic and tells Eric, in probably the longest (and most moving) monologue in theatre history, what it was like. And not just ‘what it was like’ like ‘oh, it was awful,’ but opening up and really showing the history to Eric like it’s a tangible thing you can hold and show someone. In a brilliant move, Walter is played by the same actor as Morgan (Paul Hilton), guiding the young men and helping them as much as he can. At the end of Act 1, Walter explains to Eric that his partner, the billionaire Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey, one of my faves), wanted to run away from the city during the epidemic and ignore it, along with their friends. But Walter in his kindness and empathy couldn’t, and so while Henry traveled, Walter opened up their country house to let their friends, and friends of friends and whoever needed to, have a serene place to die.
Walter’s friendship, guidance, and memories clearly make Eric even more thoughtful and considerate of (to quote another of this year’s ‘best of’(TV Edition)) what we owe to each other, and what we owe to the past and to the future. The inheritance of the title is that recognition of the importance of memory and respect in the culture. In a whole new layer to the story, it also refers to a Howards-End inspired deathbed bequeathment of important property that, like in its source material, gets infuriatingly disregarded. And as part of that property, it refers to the responsibility that these young gay men have inherited from the previous generation, the responsibility that every demographic or culture or race owes to their forebears: to recognize their struggles and understand what they went through so that you can live the life you’re living and make things better for the next group.
I know, it sounds like a lot of heavy material. And it is, and you’ll forking SOB, especially at the final scene of Part 1. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll save your hardest cries for what’s supposed to be a kind of funny moment – Eric’s friends’ 2016 Election Returns Watch Party (sigh (too real)). But you also laugh a whole lot, especially at Toby’s lines and his incredible physicality. It’s like he’s dancing through his character’s lines while fully becoming him and it is incredible. The ensemble is wonderful, and even though most have not much to say in Part 1, the cast remains onstage the entire time. Stephen Daldry’s direction has truly never been cleverer or sharper. It’s his best work yet. There is absolutely no set, other than a raised platform in the middle. No painted backdrops, no nothing. There are barely any props (save for the frequent wine glasses, the odd chair, the Hillary balloon). Yet the stage pulsates with life. The ensemble sits around the platform and watches the action, sometimes chiming in with suggestions to the author (reminding you of the framing device, which I still don’t know how I feel about). Most importantly, the ensemble moves with the story in a way I have never seen before. When you react internally to a line reading, the ensemble will react physically in a way that makes complete sense. They seem to be constantly moving but not in a distracting way, rather in a totally natural, necessary way that adds to the import of every scene. It’s like a reminder of something, maybe that your actions affect lives around you, or that you’re never alone.
Going into Part 2, I’m eager to see more of John Benjamin Hickey’s Wilcox, who was only in Part 1 for a portion of the time, and of course I’m excited for the ‘cameo’ by Vanessa Redgrave. But even more than seeing these stars, I can’t wait to get back into this world. I’m honestly still shook by the story and anxious about where things left off. This play felt like a long book that becomes important to you as you read along, the kind where you feel it in your soul and worry about the story and the characters for life, even though you know it’s not real. That the Inheritance Part 1 accomplished that is a testament to the genius of Matthew Lopez, as well as the pitch-perfect direction and the great acting that brought me fully into their world.
INFORMATION
The Inheritance ends its run at the Noel Coward Theatre on January 19 so hurry, or wait to see it on Broadway because it is definitely going.
Tickets are pretty easy to get, especially using TodayTix (which runs their rush ticket system). I got a £15 ticket (talk about value for money) in the Royal Circle, fifth row in and on the right side of center, and it was a perfect view. Too far to the extreme sides will be okay but a little restricted. The audience was pretty good, but actually the staff was awful. I could hear them talking in the lobby really loudly, proving my opinion that Delfont Mackintosh theatres and staff have to undergo a whole rehaul.
