The Inheritance

by Matthew Lopez

seen at the Young Vic on 18 April 2018

Stephen Daldry directs a cast of fourteen - twelve men, one woman and one child - in this two part play (over seven hours' playing time) exploring the connections between contemporary young gay men in New York and earlier generations by means of an extraordinary adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End.

At one level, this project looks impossible to manage. Forster's work seems inextricably bound up with its own time, even though its most famous message - 'Only connect!' - is universal. But how can the property and monetary affairs of Edwardian England, suffused with class consciousness and prejudice, be brought to bear on the contemporary New York scene? How can Forster's lifelong reticence concerning his sexuality be related to the modern freedoms and sense of entitlement that prosperous young gay males have in a cosmopolitan city?

Amazingly, it works. Ten young men, casually dressed and barefoot, gradually drift onto the bare stage (cleverly designed by Bob Crowley) and begin to chat. It appears that they are a writing group; one of them wishes to start a novel and decides to paraphrase the opening of one of his favourites - Howards End. At this E. M. Forster himself (called 'Morgan' and played with self-deprecating distinction by Paul Hilton) appears and guides the group in revealing the story and the characters. The lovers Eric (Kyle Soller) and Toby (Andrew Burnap) mirror the Schlegel sisters, while an older man with whom Eric becomes involved is pointedly named Henry Wilcox (John Benjamin Hickey). Toby's ambition and narcissism cause his relations with Eric to founder, as he becomes enamoured of the promising young actor Adam, and later comes across the rent boy Leo, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Adam (both parts played superbly by Samuel H. Levine).

Around these central players is a group of friends whose reactions to developments underscore the tensions and prejudices of modern gay life while deepening our appreciation of the major story. At times there is too much narrative, though the device of having characters describe what they are doing as they are doing it allows for some wry comedy and a useful puncturing of self-importance. Forster's insistence on recognising the undercurrents of people's behaviour is also enriching - someone will let loose in a state of high emotion and then Forster interposes 'What he actually said was - ' followed by something far more restrained and awkwardly polite. It's a clever use of social comedy to have one's cake and eat it, so to speak.

Many years before, 'Henry Wilcox' had gifted an upstate country house to his life companion Walter (also wonderfully played by Paul Hilton), but had turned away in fear and disgust when he discovered that Walter had begun using it as a hospice for men dying from AIDS. Towards the end of his life Walter has befriended Eric, and leaves an ambiguous instruction that he should inherit the house. Not surprisingly, Henry and his two sons ignore and destroy this scrap of paper, but later when Henry and Eric become a couple Eric does after all become the owner of the house - this also is a significant echo from the Forster novel.

The stories are intricately plotted and remain compulsively interesting, intrinsically within the world of the play and also through the pleasure of recognising the skill with which Lopez has adapted his material. The predominantly young cast is excellent, especially the three leads who carry an enormous weight of responsibility throughout the two parts. The question of inheritance resonates not just through the story of the house, but also in the more abstract sense of how succeeding generations of gay men should be aware of their predecessors, and the struggles both social and medical that confronted them. It's an ambitious project, and only occasionally does the tone slip into too much preachiness or too much sentimentality. Most of the time it is utterly compelling.

Very late in the proceedings, as Eric is at last beginning to find the self-confidence to assert himself, he arrives at the country house with young Leo who is now ill and desperate. There they meet Margaret, an unofficial housekeeper whose own son had once been tended there by Walter. Vanessa Redgrave plays this part, in itself yet another knowing nod to Forster as she played the first Mrs Wilcox in the Merchant-Ivory film of Howards End (a fact earlier referred to by one of Eric's friends while enthusing about several Forster film adaptations). Her long speech explaining her journey from evangelical rejection of her son's life choices to belated reconciliation on his agonising deathbed, and her later caring for the dozens of other young men who came to the house, is one of the many set pieces which are dotted throughout the play.

The play may well deal with only a limited social milieu of apparently comfortable middle class New Yorkers (apart from Leo), and may well be unrealistically male-oriented, but after all a playwright is not obliged to deal with the whole world at once. The issues the characters confront and discuss are forever pertinent, but need their own space to be aired effectively; there is grimness enough in the recollections of the older characters, and tawdriness insinuating itself everywhere even amidst social success. The Forsterian message 'Only connect!' shines through, demanding not only emotional and personal honesty in the present, but an open acknowledgement of the events in the past that shape one's own life as much as those that have shaped the modern world in which we must live.

There are many powerful moments in this production, and the intense concentration needed to attend to all its nuances is richly repaid. Where the great structure of the landmark play Angels in America is operatic and its language and narrative developments often overblown (though nonetheless very effective), this play is in many ways quieter and more relaxed. But it still packs a powerful punch. The concluding scene of the first part, which shows Eric's first visit to the country house, is one of the most moving things I have witnessed in the theatre for ages.