Following a sold-out, critically-acclaimed run at the Young Vic, Matthew Lopez’s major two-part world premiere The Inheritance lands in London's West End for just fifteen weeks. Directed by multi Olivier Award winner Stephen Daldry, this ‘monumental and transcendent' (Time Out) production questions how much we owe to those who lived and loved before us.
A generation after the peak of the AIDs crisis, what is it like to be a young gay man in New York? How many words are there now for pain and for love? Stephen Daldry's ‘remarkably involving production’ (Independent) explores profound themes through the turbulent and often hilarious experiences of a group of young, ambitious New Yorkers. What is the legacy left to them by previous generations? What do they owe the future and each other?
Spanning generations and interlinking lives, The Inheritance is ‘an exquisitely truthful and funny modern classic’ (Telegraph) that brilliantly transposes EM Forster’s novel ‘Howards End’ to 21st century New York.
3hrs 15min (incl. interval)
21st September, 2018
19th January, 2019
14+
By: Matthew Lopez
Director: Stephen Daldry
Design: Bob Crowley
Location: West End
Railway station: Charing Cross
Bus numbers: (Charing Cross) 24, 29, 176; (Strand) 6, 9, 11, 13, 15, 23, 87, 91, 139
Night bus numbers: (Charing Cross) 24, 176, N5, N20, N29, N41, N279; (Strand) 6, 23, 139, N9, N15, N11, N13, N21, N26, N44, N47, N87, N89, N91, N155, N343, N551
Car park: St Martin's Lane Hotel (1min)
Directions from tube: (2mins) Take Cranbourn Street away from Leicester Square until St Martin’s Lane, where you head right until you reach the theatre.
Inspired by E.M Forster’s novel “Howard’s End,” Matthew Lopez’s new play explores the love between gay men after the AIDS epidemic. Eric Glass and Toby Darling are a young couple living in modern day New York City. The two start out as a loving couple who tell stories of meeting, falling in love, and discussing the idea of marriage. However, cracks in their relationship soon show when an attractive young actor crosses their path. This encounter has an enormous impact on the couple, which leads Eric to form a close friendship with his older neighbour, Walter. Walter explains his past living through the AIDs epidemic, the many friends he lost, and the sanctuary he found to cope with the disease. It is through this discussion that Henry Wilcox, Walter’s partner, becomes a significant factor in Toby and Eric’s story. In an enormously moving and poignant finale to the first part Eric comes (quite literally) face to face with the true definition of the inheritance.
Playwright Matthew Lopez fell in love with the novel “Howards End” after seeing the film adaptation as a teenager. E.M. Forster’s novel inspired this epic two-part play, which features an incarnation of the author himself, and substitutes the sisters Margaret and Helen from the novel for lovers Eric and Toby.
Look out for the central platform changing height and visibly sinking when Trump is elected — a subtle reflection on what it means to be a gay man in modern-day America.
The play made its world premiere at the Young Vic in 2018, with The Telegraph describing it as “the most important American play of the century so far.”
Unfortunately, tickets for this event are no longer available.
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