| The Inheritance | |
| Based On: | Inspired by |
| Director: | Stephen Daldry |
| Setting: |
|
| Place: | Young Vic, London |
| Orig Lang: | English |
| Subject: | Early AIDS Crisis, generational trauma, queer culture |
The Inheritance is a play by Matthew López that is inspired by the 1910 novel Howards End by E. M. Forster. The play premiered in London at the Young Vic in March 2018, before transferring to Broadway in November 2019.
The play was commissioned by Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut.[1] The play was produced in London at the Young Vic Theatre under the direction of Stephen Daldry in March 2018. The play was staged in two parts of over three hours each, intended to be viewed sequentially and reimagines E. M. Forster's Howards End as "a lovingly wry portrait of New York’s gay community",[2] "with gay men from different generations standing in for Forster’s straight people from different classes". Lopez found parallels between his own life and Forster's closeted existence before the partial-decriminalisation of homosexuality, telling The New Yorker: "We’re so far apart, and yet when I read his diaries—that’s me. That’s me, a hundred years ago, as a closeted white man in England". Lopez has described that the greatest theatrical influence, despite comparisons with Tony Kushner's Angels in America as being Gatz, Elevator Repair Service's 2-part, 8-hour adaptation of The Great Gatsby, inspiring his use of "self-narration".
The Inheritance examines love between gay men in contemporary New York a generation after the Early AIDS Crisis.[3] It asks what the current generation owes to its forebears[4] with Rebecca Read writing in The New Yorker that lead character Eric Glass, "as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, has a personal connection to generational catastrophe, and is therefore better primed to comprehend the history of the gay community’s devastation".
The production transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on 21 September 2018 and was produced by Tom Kirdahy, Sonia Friedman, and Hunter Arnold.[5]
The Inheritance won Best Play at the London Evening Standard Theatre Award 2018.[6] The Inheritance also won Best New Play, Best Director for Stephen Daldry and Best Actor for Kyle Soller at both the 2019 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the 2019 Laurence Olivier Awards, also winning an Olivier for Best Lighting for Jon Clark.[7]
The play premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on 27 September 2019 in previews, with the official opening on 17 November.[8] The production features Lois Smith as Margaret, with Kyle Soller and John Benjamin Hickey, among others, reprising their roles from the London production.[9]
In December 2019, it was announced that Tony Goldwyn would replace Hickey for a four-month stint beginning in January 2020, while Hickey was set to direct a revival of Plaza Suite.[10] However, in February 2020, it was announced that The Inheritance would close on March 15, after 46 previews and 138 regular performances.[11] [12] On March 12, the final four performances were cancelled when all Broadway theatres closed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.[13]
A German language production of The Inheritance titled Das Vermächtnis, directed by Philip Stölzl, premiered at Munich's Residenztheater on January 30, 2022.[14] [15] The production was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen as one of ten "noteworthy" productions of 2022.[16] Das Vermächtnis also premiered in Hanover on 22 April 2022, as well as at the Theater Münster on 3 December 2022 and most recently at the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater in Bamberg on 6 October 2023.[17] Part one of the Bamberg production was invited to the Bayerische Theatertage in 2024.[18]
A West Coast premiere production directed by Mike Donahue opened at Geffen Playhouse on September 13, 2022, and had an extended run until November 27, 2022.[19] The play was cited as "better in Los Angeles than on Broadway"[20] by Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty. An audio adaptation[21] was later released by Audible Theater in March 2023.
Brazilian Portuguese language production of The Inheritance, called A Herança, premiered at Teatro Vivo, São Paulo, on March 9, 2023, and ran until April 30, 2023. Due to its success, a new season, this time placed at Teatro Raul Cortez, São Paulo, premiered on June 1, 2023, and ran until July 30, 2023.
The play was translated into Portuguese by Zé Henrique de Paula, who also directs and produces it. Bruno Fagundes, the other local producer, performs the role of Eric Glass in the Brazilian version.
A Danish language production of The Inheritance named Arven premiered at the Royal Danish Playhouse March 25, 2023 and ran until May 13 the same year. The production was staged by Thomas Bendixen.[22] The production won the 2023 Reumert Award for Best Performance[23] and will run again starting August 24, 2024 as part of the Royal Danish Theatre's 2024/2025 season.[24]
In April 2023 Canadian Stage announced that, as part of its 23/24 season, it would stage a production in Toronto.The production was directed by Brendan Healy, Canadian Stage's artistic director, and ran at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Front Street East, Toronto in March and April 2024.
| Role | Off-West End | West End | Broadway | Los Angeles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 2019 | 2022 | |||
| Eric Glass | Kyle Soller | Adam Kantor | |||
| Toby Darling | Andrew Burnap | Juan Castano | |||
| Adam / Leo | Samuel H. Levine | Nicholas L. Ashe | |||
| Walter / Morgan | Paul Hilton | Bill Brochtrup | |||
| Henry Wilcox | John Benjamin Hickey | Tuc Watkins | |||
| Jasper | Hugo Bolton | Kyle Harris | Kasey Mahaffy | ||
| Toby's Agent | Robert Boulter | Jonathan Burke | Eddie Lopez | ||
| Young Henry | Hubert Burton | Carson McCalley | August Gray Gall | ||
| Tristan | Syrus Lowe | Jordan Barbour | Jay Donnell | ||
| Jason 1 | Michael Marcus | Darryl Gene Daughtry Jr. | Israel Erron Ford | ||
| Young Walter | Luke Thallon | Jack Riddiford | Dylan Frederick | Miguel Pinzon | |
| Jason 2 | Michael Walters | Arturo Luís Soria | Avi Roque | ||
| Margaret | Vanessa Redgrave | Lois Smith | Tantoo Cardinal | ||
The reviewer for The Daily Telegraph called the play “perhaps the most important American play of this century.” [25]
The Variety reviewer wrote the play is a "vast, imperfect and unwieldy masterpiece that unpicks queer politics and neoliberal economics anew. In addressing the debt gay men owe to their forebears, it dares to ask whether the past hasn’t also sold the present up short."
Michael Billington, The Guardian reviewer, wrote: "While Lopez’s play has a literary framework, it teems with life and incident...Lopez is also unafraid to periodically stop the plot and clear the stage for an impassioned debate: one of the most intense is about the status of gay culture which, having fought so long against oppression, now finds itself in danger of being co-opted."[26] In a later article, Billington also praised Paul Hilton's performance in the Young Vic Theatre production in a list by The Guardian writers of the 50 greatest theatre shows since 2000, in which The Inheritance placed 15th.[27]
The show received mostly mixed reviews on Broadway. As Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times: "Its breadth doesn't always translate into depth." He praised the acting of many in the large cast and noted the continued experiential relevance of the AIDS crises, stating "That effort to conjure a nightmare era in danger of being forgotten by many young people today captures what’s best in 'The Inheritance'.”[28]
Writing in The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead drew comparisons to Angels in America, the two-part epic play by Tony Kushner, also examining the Early AIDS Crisis in New York, describing The Inheritance as "less intellectually demanding" and "strik[ing] an upper-middlebrow tone" and also comparing the play with Hanya Yanagihara's 2015 "gay-trauma" novel A Little Life.
Terrence McNally, author of the 1994 play Love! Valour! Compassion!, which addressed the AIDS Crisis contemporarily, said that "as an 80-year-old survivor, observer, and participant of the many years covered in the play" he had never had such a strong response, referring to the experience of watching a play about the Early AIDS Crisis amid an audience of gay men of both the survivors' generation and the subsequent generation, that of the protagonists.
| Year | Award | Category | Nominee | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Evening Standard Theatre Award[29] | Best Play | Matthew Lopez | |
| Best Actor | Kyle Soller | |||
| Best Director | Stephen Daldry | |||
| Critics' Circle Theatre Award | Best New Play | Matthew Lopez | ||
| Best Actor | Kyle Soller | |||
| Best Director | Stephen Daldry | |||
| 2019 | Laurence Olivier Award[30] | Best New Play | ||
| Best Actor | Kyle Soller | |||
| Best Actress in a Supporting Role | Vanessa Redgrave | |||
| Best Director | Stephen Daldry | |||
| Best Set Design | Bob Crowley | |||
| Best Lighting Design | Jon Clark | |||
| Best Sound Design | Paul Arditti and Christopher Reid | |||
| Outstanding Achievement in Music | Paul Englishby | |||
| South Bank Sky Arts Award[31] | Theatre | |||