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?

Hedda Gabler

by Henrik Ibsen

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 25 January 2017

Ivo van Hove directs Ruth Wilson as Hedda, Kyle Soller as Tesman, and Rafe Spall as Judge Brack in a new version of Iben's play modernised by Patrick Marber. Chukwudi Iwuji is Lovborg, Sinéad Matthews is Mrs Elvsted, Kate Duchene is Aunt Juliana and Éva Magyar is the maid Berte.

The setting is a bare apartment, looking all the more bare for having large expanses of unpainted walls (plastered and awaiting attention) and comparatively little furniture. This partly evokes the Tesmans' pretensions in moving into an apartment beyond their means (ironically underscored in the text by Hedda's admission that she praised the apartment on a whim), and partly reflects the aridity of Hedda's interior life. Indeed, stripped of its late 19th century social claustrophobia, the play has to focus more intently on Hedda's trapped and disintegrating psyche. As the audience files in, the maid is seated impassively to one side while Hedda sits at the piano, back to the audience, and fiddles tunelessly with the notes.