THE INHERITANCE Hoax on Broadway

What’s the hoax part?

The play isn’t about what it promises to be about. Therefore deception. Therefore hoax. Expensive hoax at that.

It's just Howard's End Gone Gay

Making it two parts is a hoax. I don’t know if it was just to get people to pay for two tickets, or if the producers thought it would get more of a buzz if it were two parts, but it could easily have been a one part play. Entire acts could have been cut without taking anything away from the story.

I’m gay and not a prude, but I found the over-the-top-hypersexualized first 30 min completely off-putting and tacky. It seemed to reduce gay men to nothing more than fucking.

The play really portrayed gay men as one stereotype after another. There were missed opportunities to show the good things gay men do for society, and instead the characters are either shallow, self-absorbed, gold diggers, whores, or opportunists.

It had its entertaining moments, but I don’t think it deserves to become a gay “classic” and instead it managed to offend me as a gay man.

I've written this multiple times on the Broadway threads, so much so that I probably sound like the Anti-Inheritance loon, but I absolutely fucking loathed it. I'm white, but The Inheritance is six hours of white nonsense. For all their affluence and education, these are characters who apparently know nothing about recent history, where such knowledge that only be gained by inheriting an entire fucking estate in Upstate New York. And I found the end of Part One to be cheap and unearned. It uses what is recent historical catastrophe (which remains painfully personal for many), and turns commemoration into something - like real estate or clothes or books - that you acquire by buying it.

It's like a marathon six-hour episode of Sex and the City. It is stylishly and sharply produced, beautifully designed, everybody's hot, and the acting for the most part is really great. But it also relentlessly indulgent, solipsistic, with characters that are wilfully unaware of their own privilege.

Is it garbage? Is it entertaining garbage? Is there something in there that’s truly worthwhile and important? I keep asking myself these questions because a lot of queers seem to be hoodwinked. “The greatest modern play ever written” is a comment on a Facebook post I saw earlier today. Not only do statements like that about this play disgust me, those are extraordinarily big words! We’re really placing The Inheritance above A Streetcar Named Desire, A Raisin in the Sun, The Women, Three Tall Women (I could write this list out all day if I don’t stop myself now)?

What annoys me is people making these magnificent statements can’t answer the question, “Why?” They really can’t. It’s a fun game. They’ll usually cite Paul Hilton’s big monologue and that ridiculous ending to part one as reasons. Maybe babble something about Lois Smith. “Yes, that’s what everybody says. Aside from these moments, what else in those seven hours made such an impression on you? Why do you think this play is important? Why do you see it as a masterpiece? What constitutes a masterpiece in your mind?” .......and it’s crickets. They can’t answer these questions. Yet everyone who takes issue with the play, even those who enjoyed it, can tell you what those issues are and back them up with logical explanations.

Yes, the end of part one is unearned. It also amounts to nothing. All that falderal intended to emotionally manipulate the audience and there’s no follow through. Nothing. Why aren’t the acolytes bothered by this? Do they even notice? Why are they calling all this minor reboot of Queer as Folk important and urgently needed?

Hey, I thought it was fun but it’s fluff. Easy to digest. There isn’t much there. Yeah, it’s got some trimming that distracts from its simplicity, but doesn’t all the AIDS stuff (lol ALL the AIDS stuff - it comes up like three times) feel tacked on? Like Matthew Lopez began with a gay adaptation of Howards End and the moneymakers were like, “Dude. This is cool and whatever but we really need to hook those fags (I’m gay, I can say fag) and Howards End will only go so far with our marketing team. Do you think you can shoehorn in some AIDS? It’s been a minute since we talked about AIDS. Something about how gay millennials wouldn’t be able to shop at Costco if all that AIDS hadn’t happened. Maybe some AIDS ghosts could show up Costco while that saintly boring as fuck Eric Glass is shopping for a TV. Know what I mean? Here’s some money.”

That just seems so.....plausible to me.

If the Broadway reviews reflect those masturbatory critics in London, people have been bribed. There are so many problems with the play but it’s all Dramaturgy 101. They WILL see the problems. Or it could turn into another Slave Play. Difference is Slave Play has no advance sales, and all the white guilt reviews did nothing for business. It’s just sitting there. The Inheritance might be a step or two ahead here. And I mention Slave Play because it and The Inheritance were supposed to change the landscape of Broadway forever. Please. As if black people are showing up for anything with “slave” in the title. So we’ve got the white bleeding heart liberals enjoying how woke they are at one show and the white gay former twinks and masc 4 masc at the other. The landscape looks pretty familiar to me. Anyone see The Sound Inside? It’s a real play.

The Harry Potter Plays are also a fraud. No way that needs two plays to tell the story

I got restless leg syndrome during The Inheritance. Enuf!!! I need to stand up!! Quit complaining about your upper white class problems!!!!

It had some nice moments, but I thought it should have been cut down by at least 1-1/2 hours (or more). I HATED the characters providing narrative.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t like it.

WAY too long - too much narrative, not enough drama.

Lois Smith is great - as usual. People around me absolutely sobbed at the end of act 1 - but it’s no great work of art.

I thought it was more Jackie Susann than Tony Kushner. It definitely outstays its welcome by at least 90 minutes, if not more.

I think the London critics liked it because it was Daldry and had literary pretensions; there was a nice symmetry between Howard’s End and Vanessa’s appearance. But I didn’t really get the doppelgänger stuff and the only really engaging character for me was Toby Darling. I knew when I saw it in London the NYC gays would hate it, justifiably so. That’s the other thing, in London people could buy into the fantasy of it - in NYC I can understand how people could be insulted by the shallowness of it. The whole thing wasn’t nearly sexy enough to get away with that.

Download the free pdf book about The Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts. Read it. Made two visits to the Met and spend some time in those otherwise dead spaces. Well done! Time well spent, even if not thrillingly entertaining! Now at least you have a little French decorative arts references in your pocket and who knows when THAT might come in handy?

Ben Brantley’s review wasn’t good but he didn’t burn it at the stake either. It felt like he was showing the thing mercy. And no Critic’s Pick, which they’ve been handing out like candy lately, so that’s a blow.

Variety was an absolute rave. Don’t know if punters read that though.

"so much so that I probably sound like the Anti-Inheritance loon,"

Just fucking own it already!

Probably? Yeesh!

You all are my people. You said it all OP. R5 EXACTLY. I started a thread about this too. I've commented about it multiple times. I could be the loon to them too. Haha. I despise this play and everyone involved. It's so annoying how the producers are telling us it's a masterpiece. Not even fucking close. The audacity.

Well, it’s certainly been over-hyped, to its detriment. No one, especially New Yorkers, enjoys being brow-beaten to see anything. (As I recall, the obc of Ragtime was publicized in much the same way, which didn’t help it any either.)

I saw both parts in October. Even then, I remarked here on the Broadway thread that, while Part I seemed sold out, Part II was only about 75% full; so already the word was out that it wasn’t as good.

And it isn’t. The momentum just slows down, veering off into Toby Darling’s decline, with disco effects, while the others seem to stagnate. The links to Howards End wither, and John Benjamin Hickey, a wonderful actor, ends up more or less a discarded device. There are some lovely moments in Part II, including Hickey, Lois Smith, and a reappearance by E.M.Forster, but they can’t elevate the surroundings enough to matter.

I had assumed that changes would be made for the Broadway production. But, after checking the published script, I didn’t notice any, especially in its conclusion, where the narrative device, mostly abandoned in Part II, returns to superficially tidy up the proceedings.

On the other hand, I agree it’s definitely worth seeing, flaws and all, if only because of the many wonderful moments in it. In a world of tourist fare, it sure stands high.

I suspect there will be a substantially revised performance script for regional productions.

BTW: I noticed that, at the bottom of the NYT review, a closing date has been posted: March 1, 2020.

I saw it in London, and I thought it was entertaining. I was moved by the end of part 1, but part 2 didn't live up to the promise for me. Ultimately, it felt like a live performance of Queer As Folk, which I also enjoyed at the time, while fully knowing it was garbage. I wouldn't say The Inheritance is garbage, but I don't think it's a masterpiece either.

R8 I saw this as well, and it was so much better the first time. The flaws are very apparent in the second viewing. Some moments almost play like fan fic.

I do want to see this but...I've been worried all along about it.

Matthew Lopez hasn't demonstrated any brilliance PRIOR to this play...the "straight dude learns valuable life lessons from a black drag queen" awfulness of "The Legend of Georgia McBride" was embarrassing in its obvious need to suck up to "hip" straight audiences who love "flamboyant" but safe gay comedy.

Though, The Whipping Man had its charms, The Inheritance really does sound like it's very much "manufactured" to be High Art....when it's not.

Oh Lord, High Art. What even is High Art? Wherever the definition, The Inheritance’s logo won’t be pictured next to it. There ARE moments that are great. There are bound to be a few great moments buried somewhere within seven fucking hours.

It’s also fun. Shallow as fuck when it’s being fun so there’s a High Art sitcom element to it. Even from the start. Toby Darling puking on the dog on Meryl Streep’s lap at a house in the Hamptons. Like, that’s a fairy tale and it made me uncomfortable that I was supposed to accept it as a real thing that happened to the character. And so easy a scenario. The most obvious. But fun, right? I don’t know, I was shut out from the word “Hamptons” and knew I wouldn’t be in this story. Nor would anyone I know or care to know. Realizing that ten minutes in was something of a roadblock. But fun.

So we’ve had the rambling disorganized, contrived opening of Forster instructing that Gap ad, leading to the fairy tale that has nothing to do with me. I switched gears and started to see it as an entertainment. Which helped. But from that perspective, recognizing the garbage got very easy.

Changing the subject. Adam. What the fuck was the point of that? Amounts to nothing at all yet he’s fed to us as someone who will matter. Then he disappears from the play entirely, replaced by hunched over, pathetic Leo, who charges way too much to fuck to be that goddamn decrepit. Henry Wilcox is one of his clients for fucks sake. I’m sure his word of mouth is decent. So why must he always be dying?

Anyway, smart dramaturgy would have eliminated Adam entirely. Toby and Eric already have thousands of reasons to break up. Toby could see Leo’s whore profile and hire him simply because he’s hot. Leo could arrive with all the arrogance Adam has, and his first encounter with Toby could include the story of the bathhouse orgy. If that simply MUST be there. (Not enough people are talking about how fucking awful Samuel Levine is. It’s a masterclass of having no idea what to do with your hands and a total absence of meaning in every word you speak — dear God, he’s an embarrassment and certainly must have fucked his way into that role.) But yeah, Leo could start hiding behind his cocky whore veneer to gradually reveal a scared vulnerable person. I’m interested in THAT narrative.

There’s potential for a clever, sharp, possibly intriguing 2.5-3hr play in there. The Lois Smith part should be cut and the end of the entire thing should be the arrival of the ghosts. Why the fuck wouldn’t you make that the finale? It’s clearly the end of the play in the wrong place.

It would take locking Lopez in a closet while I cut and rearrange this mess into something worth a damn. I have to deal with people involved with this show. Super involved. I have to nod and smile because openly expressing my disgust and challenging their bullshit adoration would do me far more harm than good.

But fuck The Inheritance and any critic who didn’t make it an actual point to clearly discuss the many problems that are basic and obvious. And it amazes me it’s gotten this far without anyone involved stepping up and saying, “Matt, much of this sucks ass. Let’s have a little talk.”

R21 Everything, YES. I love you.

If it's bringing in the punters, there's isn't much onus to fix anything... (I haven't seen the plays.)

So is the female character the equivalent of Henry Wilcox?

[quote]the fairy tale that has nothing to do with me

I still don't understand why you ever thought it WOULD have something to do with you. Or why it should, or why you can't relate to something unless it's almost literally about you.

Yes, that seems rather parochial.

Just finished reading the published script, before seeing it on stage next week. There is a LOT of "telling" and not much "showing."

That's not a hoax, R2. That's poor dramaturgy. It wasn't a scheme on the part of the playwright.

That silly little gay boy who wrote SLAVE PLAY has been working overtime trying to sell tickets by appearing on MSNBC, who's had him on not once but twice to hawk it. Every other word out of his mouth was "like." That was a really dumb gamble on the part of the producers who paid to put that thing up on the Great White Way (pun intended).

I didn't intend to derail this thread, just thought I'd mention that.

Oh wow fuck a bunch of Jeremy O. Harris. That shrine of New York’s white guilt must crumble and evaporate. All the incredible black playwrights waiting for their moment and that’s who they chose to be their symbol of inclusion? Gucci dresses him. Vanity Fair does photo shoots of him. He’s interviewed on late night talk shows. His literal norm is “success” (I say that lightly because Slave Play just sits there with no advance). He’s earned nothing. That ain’t no playwright. That’s a product. And fuck NYTW because he’s their fault.

But wait a minute wait a minute. When an 8 hour fag play is thrust upon the world as the story of all fags, there damn well better be something inside it every fag in the audience can connect to. I lost many to AIDS. I lost my brother to AIDS. Don’t tell me an epic described to be about the legacy of the dead and how the living must carry it should not have something about me in it. Or about the people in my life who are dead. Fuck you 25

To take that further, people who enjoy a play typically see themselves in it somewhere. In a character, in a theme (a real theme, not a marketed one), in a moment. Somewhere, something.

The Inheritance is a soap opera. It’s gay All My Children.....ugh I hate denigrating AMC that way. .....It’s like the gay Passions. What was the last soap opera of any kind that you connected with beyond entertainment value? It’s impossible to connect with the characters because they’re nonsense people in nonsense storylines. It was stated The Inheritance was entertaining.

And fuck you again.

Are you saying people don't see themselves in soap operas?

Maybe in their fantasies.

You object to gay fantasias?

Not when Tony Kushner writes them.

R30, I agree with most of what you say, but I question the number of incredible playwrights there are out there, period.

The Times review spends a lot of time qualifying. It’s a middling review, at best.

Inheritance publicity team is working overtime too. It was on TMZ last night. Since when is a Broadway opening featured on TMZ? The gay one covered it and brought it up. Everyone laughed and said they would never sit through a six hour play. Especially Harvey. They interviewed weirdo Glenn Close and asked how was it sitting through a six hour play and she said she, "didn't notice the passage of time". Just like R21 said. It's bullshit adoration.

The Inheritance cast: still pasty fug Brits masquerading as hot NY gay men.

R37 = M

About eight years ago, EVERYONE in America decided to be a playwright. There are good ones out there. There are great ones out there. But their work is hidden in stacks of hundreds and hundreds of plays, eventually glanced at by some adolescent intern, who’ll read three pages and pass on it because their latte got cold and they’re annoyed now.

Submissions are a crapshoot but it’s the only avenue most writers have until they meet someone with legitimate clout who wants to support them. It’s still about who you know. That’s never changed. Most playwrights will never have opportunity, no matter how good they are.

And with major American theatre companies concerned with finding the next great voice in Zimbabwe, American playwrights are rather fucked.

This is an interesting piece of writing, from a critic on Medium. I don't agree with the point that there's an emptiness to the play because some of the actors are straight. My thought is: let actors act. But a lot of what this guy writes is very persuasive and well-argued.

Before I read that ^^^^ I’m going to state loud and clear that I could not give a fuck what an actor’s sexual orientation is. I’d rather have a straight actor who can act the shit out of it than a gay actor who sucks and is only on the stage because he’s gay. This line of thinking must stop. Now. It’s going to destroy us.

I bought tickets to this in advance and will never in the future fall for the "next big play from London".

I learned that lesson with Groundhog Day. Wow, what a piece of shit. The Brits are easily pleased in a way that is deeply alarming to me.

Kyle Turner’s a cutie.

And.....actually. When dealing with a play purporting itself to be the next great gay epic, the result of ANGELS, and a portrait of Gay New York — and the play isn’t using STARS as a draw because the hype for the play has made the PLAY the star, thereby making it possible to populate the cast almost entirely with unknowns. In that case, sexuality is a presence. And there are myriad lesser to unknown gay actors in London and New York who could play these roles successfully. No, you can’t ask an actor what his sexual orientation as part of the hiring process, but there are ways around that. The revival of Boys in the Band is proof. So, while I do strongly disagree with the idiocy of only gay actors should play gay characters, when we’re talking about “the play of the century,” cast with people we’ve never heard of, my opinion gets a little murky.

[Quote] a gay actor who sucks and is only on the stage because he’s gay. This line of thinking must stop.

No. That line of argument needs to stop. As if a director is going to hire a terrible actor who's gay when there are plenty of quality actors who are gay.

And so only straight people should play straight people? Because that’s where you’re going with this.

Can someone please tell me why we continue to have plays about the gay New York experience populated with straight British actors? It’s fucking annoying.

I for one am very sick of the glut of Brits playing Americans. I know this is an import from Britain but in general they're overrepresented in the acting industry across the boards of theatre, tv, and film.

It’s not as if they couldn’t have found young male actors to play these shallow roles that are straight out of the gay cliche playbook in New York. I’ve seen more talented and attractive Juilliard first years that could have easily pulled this off. We’re not talking acting that requires any real depth or challenge. Casting could have gone into the soap/TV pool and done just fine.

I’m seeing Nick Robinson in MOCKINGBIRD tonight and I’m totally fan girling.

Off topic, but there it is.

R50. That may be because they are better. They have more stage skills, they have less ego and they're willing to work for a smaller fee.

R51 I assume the production company has contracts with the original players and didn't want to waste time training up locals.

How many members of the cast are Brits?

R53, first of all, that isn't true. British actors don't have more stage skills, less ego or are willing to work for a smaller fee. It's a union, first of all. There aren't fee demands with either British or American Equity. You really don't know what you're talking about. By the way, I've seen more than a few bad performances from British actors and more deplorable America accents than I care to remember.

Training up locals? You mean casting actors and rehearsing NYC actors? You make it sound like the pool of NYC actors are community actors in some small town.

*American accents

Can you imagine the effort in finding a satisfactory local and asking them to LEARN the script of an unknown seven hour play?

The Brits gave the play a chance first. Did they outbid American theatre producers/companies?

I know, R57! Can you imagine having to look among the "locals" of New York City to find any suitable actors who will learn their lines and rehearse in order to play Americans for a Broadway production? Only actors in the United Kingdom do that, apparently!

There's only ONE Brit in the cast. Get your facts straight, girls.

[Quote] There's only ONE Brit in the cast. Get your facts straight, girls.

El oh el.

What about all the other times? Again, I know it was directly from the National, but the recent Broadway revival of ANGELS was crawling with British actors getting by with fairly bad American accents. Okay, girls?

So you no longer want to talk about "The Inheritance"?

No, go right ahead. But the stupid comments of R53 prompted the diversion. Carry on.

One of the new trends is to, instead of going to Chicago or some such American city, try out an allegedly important play in London, get the hype, and then truck it over here. I don’t know how to go into details about this but I understand that, somehow, it’s also cheaper to do it this way.

R25, I think like a lot of us, R21 has the expectation that they will identify because it’s being marketed as an eta-defining play for gay men.

^era-defining

R21, I agree about Samuel Levine. Very mediocre actor, even worse with his clothes on. No great beauty either.

I can barely make it through a normal length play. Hell no, I’m not sitting through 6 hours of pretentious playacting that basically regurgitates my life experience.

The Kyle Turner piece at Medium reads like it needed a few more drafts. In its current state it’s not entirely true to itself or the play.

I am now 55, and I swore after losing a day of my life to ARCADIA, I would never sit through a multipart play again and I haven't. (Tom Stoppard is such a pretentious ass.)

I also stopped reacting to The New York Times hype after essentially watching laundry swirling around to music for an hour thanks to Ben Brantley. It was some sort of a puppet show he raved to everyone about in one of his earliest reviews. The puppeteer still gets work, even though I cannot recall his name.

[quote]The Kyle Turner piece at Medium reads like it needed a few more drafts.

R70, I stopped reading r41 after its third "oh, dear."

R71, I think you mean The Coast of Utopia.

I also think twice or three times or maybe even four before I subject myself to a four-or eight-hour epic. Most normal-length plays are too long for me because I've already seen the same damn in other pays of the past--I usually estimate in my head how much time has gone by until the thing will end or there will be an intermission, and that's with just about any play.

And I've stopped going to see friends' plays (either friends as actors or playwrights) out of some feeling of obligation. That rarely ends in anything other than my extreme annoyance at the being talked into giving up another two hours of my life watching something I knew would be bad to begin with. The older I get, the more I realize that's time you can't get back, and I have too many friends in the theatre to sacrifice my time in that way.

r74 = Wutta Kunt

You're probably the not very talented (or untalented) person I'm speaking of, R75. So go fuck yourself. Twat.

R74 I feel that.

Well, my friends aren't in crap nor do they write crap, so aren't I the lucky duck. And if I miss one, there's always another. If they tell me it's genuinely special for them, I'll go. I can't imagine having friends in the theatre and not supporting their work, like, at all. Are these real friends or acquaintances?

How do you know you've been banned from the Broadway World message board? Do they warn you or does your ability to post or do anything just stop?

I have a lot of friends in the theatre, being in the theatre, R78. I have friends who have productions in major subscription and Off-Broadway theaters, as well as Broadway. They don't need to have individuals there, per se, and I choose very carefully what I will see among all that. As for smaller productions (Off-Broadway and Off-Off), you're damn right I'm careful. And many of them are very good actors. But I can't support the dozens and dozens of people I know. Some of them are pretty close, some less so.

"I can't imagine having friends in the theatre and not supporting their work, like, at all." Well, you must see a lot of shit, then. I don't believe it otherwise. Maybe you're very undiscriminating.

No, no. Don't get me wrong. If I'm not interested, I'm probably not doing it. Being in the theatre myself, it truthfully often comes down to who MUST I support? As in will not showing my face end up biting me in the ass. A director I want to work with has something up in the same timeline that they're considering taking my project, I go to the thing and make sure it's known I'm there. Or an actor or a producer. Sometimes showing up amounts to something more. And we all know that's true.

I listen to people who make decisions about other people's lives, whether they want to work with them on X thing, and "so and so didn't come to my thing, but so and so came to my last two things, so I'm leaning toward....." Because it's like that. Going to see a friend in a show because I love my friend and I'm interested in the show is fucking treat compared to what I've just described. But yes, I do have filters.

And it's nice when your friend is Javert on Broadway and gives you house seats. I mean, THAT'S a thing you do.

Eight hours of talk sounds unbearable. No costumes, color or decor.

Was the Estate of the late EM Forster paid any money for theft of his name and intellectual copyright of his novel?

R81 is describing obligatory (ie, career-related) reasons for seeing a show. That's akin to artistic extortion. On the level, it's Off-Broadway and Broadway, not anything on a lesser level. It's quid pro quo. Luckily, I don't have to suffer any of that.

I always liked the line in Christopher Durang's play Torture and Those Who Love Them.

The woman describes how her friend committed suicide during The Coast of Utopia. It was so long that she decided to will her heart to stop beating.

The Inheritance: Or Why John Benjamin Hickey Has That Old Boyfriend Who Produces Modern Family

Thanks r73, I meant The Coast of Utopia. (To be honest Arcadia was a long slog as well.)

And the puppeteer Brantley orgasmed over is Basil Twist.

I agree with you, R74, about not going to see friends' plays.

My rather pretty flatmate was a wannabe-actor and he'd get me comps for all these small shows and community shows. And after a year I realised that the audience for all these shows were filled with other people getting comps.

I rarely go to the theatre now.

"I rarely go to the theatre now."

Understandable.

Trash. Don’t see it.

It’ll probably be made into an HBO two year parter. Save your money.

After more than a century, "Howard and his Bleedin' End" (to quote Rita) is in public domain, so no rights to pay!

This dead author's work may be in the public domain but it offends me his reputation is being used for this commercial venture.

It also offended me that the intimate details of Virginia Woolf's life was disrespectfully picked over for this commercial schmaltz—

Today's Riedel column.

lol they only took in 100k after the reviews??

DOA. Despite what Riedel says about “deep pocketed producers,” I seriously doubt they’ll make it to the Tonys, and they certainly won’t win any.

[quote] Was the Estate of the late EM Forster paid any money for theft of his name and intellectual copyright of his novel?

The book is out of copyright in both the US and the UK.

And you do not owe a dead figure's estate any money is you use them as a character in a drama. You cannot copyright human beings, and when they are dead, they cannot be libeled nor slandered, according to the law in both the UK or the US.

I was under the impression the show was limited until March 1. Is that not the case and they are only selling until March 1? If the play carries on, the Brits in the cast will have to be replaced, as The Ferryman had to bring in replacements. How many are Brits? Kyle Soller, Paul Hilton, anyone else?

Another question. Can someone please explain to me how in the world a play with no set and no stars budgeted at 9 million dollars? Is that the sum total of the costs of mounting it at Young Vic, West End, and Broadway? CARRIE cost 8 million and had one of the most extraordinarily complex scenic and technical designs in Broadway history. But then I remember inflation, which means CARRIE cost more that 17 million dollars. I'm rambling now.

more *than 17 million dollars. Tricky fingers.

You think someone called "Kyle Soller" is a Brit? Have you ever left your house?

Have you ever left your house, r98? Kyle Soller happens to have been born in CT, and grew up in Alexandria, VA, but the name Soller has British roots.

Only chavs have the first name Kyle in the UK.

Soller has lived in the UK since at least 2008. So.......perhaps he was born here but he must have dual citizenship, which makes him half-British, if only residentially. His only other Broadway credit is from 2012. Otherwise, his entire career is UK based. He's pretty British.

How upsetting: my CQ (Chav Quotient) isn't as high as r100's.

He wasn't born there.

[Quote] How upsetting: my CQ (Chav Quotient) isn't as high as [R100]'s.

Well, knowledge comes in handy when you're trying to be knowing...

Or you could answer the question about which ones are British instead of pulling your dick out and trying to smack my face with it.

Just saw an interview on TV with Matthew Lopez. He is a cutie.

I found that 9 million figure very surprising as well. The cast are nobodies literally barefoot on a platform. What the fuck are they paying 9 mil for? Lois Smith and whats his butt aren’t stars and aren’t getting huge paydays either. Completely ridiculous.

Kyle Soller is American but went to RADA, married a classmate and stayed there. (He must have had dual citizenship through his family though because the only Americans RADA usually takes are ones with the right to work in the UK.)

Why'd Vanessa Redgrave not do it in NYC?

Lopez has the misfortune to think that he is more gifted than he is. And it is written on his visage.

I’ve heard multiple accounts from friends in London that, while it was super awesome to be in Redgrave’s presence, it was apparently obvious remembering her lines was an issue and made the entire sequence uncomfortable to watch. I’ve also heard she was luminous and not a problem could be found with her performance. It’s all here say. Who knows? All of that should be cut anyway, regardless of the nobility of the actress playing her. It’s just too late in the game for all that, unless a way for it to be placed earlier could be found.

But I also think there’s no reason this story needs two parts, that Adam character should be cut, the Prague bathhouse monologue should come from Leo, and the end of part one should be the end of the entire play. Give me a day with that script and I’ll manipulate it into being the most thought-provoking three hours of “this year, last year, and probably next year as well.”

Frankly, I think something riveting is lurking somewhere in all that bulk. Probably still superficial as hell, but not nearly as obvious if it was tightened up within an inch of its life.

I could only track down a broadway.com interview with Lopez from September. What I saw was an excited playwright who was happy and smiling genuinely (and constantly) as he breathlessly talked about this play that is making his Broadway dreams come true. I detected no signs of self-importance or even a tremendous lot of confidence. He was just.....happy and excited.

Where’s evidence of his visage suggesting he thinks he’s more talented than he is? I’m open to looking at it. I just couldn’t find any. Granted, any playwright asking an audience to give seven hours to one play is by nature going to be self-important to some degree. But, from what I saw, he seemed like a sweetheart.

I didn't know he was Priscilla Lopez's nephew. Hmmmm.....

Really R112? Lopez’ Times profile was beyond pretentious and ridiculous.

I thought you were talking about video, not print. A visage is a person’s face, so I was looking for something that would show me his cocky little face but only found clips of what appears to be a nice guy.

R115, you are correct: Matthew is a very nice, sweet, and down-to-earth person. Not the least bit pretentious. I haven't read the NYT profile but can't imagine it's very accurate if it portrayed him as being otherwise.

Even if he's nice, stardom (or the promise of...) does things to people.

New Yorker profile of Lopez

Spoiler: sorta a less successful Toby

I've spent some time in his company this past year. He's definitely fighting the struggle between being a nice guy and shoving his head completely up his own ass.

He was his own oracle with this. Toby Darling's play goes to Broadway, the acting and direction are praised well beyond the play itself. Sure, he's had some praise, but New York must be one hell of a buzzkill after being anointed the second coming of Christ in London.

I think many of the problem wouldn't be there if more time had been given to the play's development. I understand from an inside source the entire process from Lopez starting the play to opening on Broadway took five years. There are 90 minute plays that are in development for five years before they make it to the stage. I'm not of the mind to send a script into development hell. It's all too obvious when a play has been so overdeveloped most of the life has been sucked out of it. But FIVE YEARS from start to finish for a 7 hour play?

So much of what doesn't work could be easily fixed by logical dramaturgy. Was this a situation where everyone wrapped the playwright in a protective bubble because they believed what he was doing was so important he became infallible? That's what's happened to people like Mamet. Whether you love/hate/like/dislike/could give a fuck about David Mamet, one only has to look at his earlier works in comparison to his current dreck to realize the people he surrounds himself with stopped telling him the truth years ago. If that's already happening with Lopez, who is so early in his career, I worry about his future. If, on the other hand, Lopez was surrounded by honest voices during this process, he should maybe never work with those idiots again.

Two part plays mean more revenue, right?

Do they? The schedule allows for far more performances of part one. In London, many didn’t return for part two, so maybe they anticipated that would be the case here. I’d think it depends on which two part play.

Harry Potter could easily be slashed down to 2.5 hours and its two part structure feels like a simple ploy to squeeze more money out of people. It’s had a good run succeeding at this too. But I don’t think that’s why The Inheritance is two parts. I think Lopez honestly wanted to write the first gay epic since Angels.

Unfortunately, epic doesn’t automatically mean a work is good or important. Jesus, look at Liz Taylor’s Cleopatra. Making that movie all but destroyed 20th Century Fox and the hell endured by those involved was monumental. The result is one of the most boring pieces of shit I’ve ever seen. But it sure is epic.

"Give me a day with that script and I’ll manipulate it into being the most thought-provoking three hours of 'this year, last year, and probably next year as well.'"

Well, don't you think highly of yourself, R111. Anything else that would benefit from your dramaturgical genius? Perhaps you'd like a crack at Hedda Gabler or Waiting For Godot?

Have you taken a crack at "Little Me"?

There are already superior translations of Hedda and Godot needs no work. But it does amuse me you would rank those two with the frivolity of the inheritance.

Little me needs some help. Problem is I love the book. Hate the musical.

"Godot needs no work." REALLY? It DOESN'T?

"But it does amuse me you would rank those two with the frivolity of the inheritance." And it amuses. me that someone of your self-attributed dramaturgical prowess is tone deaf to sarcasm.

Lol, Matthew Lopez is NOT attractive. Just stop.

I just saw this yesterday. It was truly one of the most incredible theater experiences I've ever had.

It's about how, as gays gain equality, do they still need to create personal families and communities.

It it written so fluidly that the entire 7 hours flew by. I loved the characters so much. GO SEE THIS!

Hmmm...how many of you who have cunted about the play have actually seen it?

R128 is Glenn Close. R129 I've seen it. Unfortunately.

Typical DL--lots of commenting and snark about stuff no one has actually seen

I will say that Vanessa Redgrave/Lois Smith's character does seem like she walked in from another play

Although the cast of The Inheritance is multi-cultural, this is really the story of white gay men in NYC in the post-HIV world.

While we pretend and hope we have such a diverse group of friends but, in reality, we don't.

Lopez is a good writer--not as poetic as he thinks but still always keeps your interest. Things flow very well.

[quote] Adam character should be cut, the Prague bathhouse monologue should come from Leo, and the end of part one should be the end of the entire play.

Those are actually great ideas. The Adam character sort of disappears by the end anyway. This meteroric rise to become the toast of Bway starined credulity to begin with. The Prague bathhouse monologue would make sense coming out of Leo, but he's too poor to have ever been to Prague--so it could located at a party somewhere.

The end of the first play was such an emotional moment that nothing in the second half could compare.

[quote] I am now 55, and I swore after losing a day of my life to ARCADIA, I would never sit through a multipart play again and I haven't. (Tom Stoppard is such a pretentious ass.)

I saws Arcadia too and agree. That said, The Inheritance makes so much more sense and, if you're gay, it will take you through a roller-coaster of emotion.

Wonderful show that speaks to the connection between elder and younger gays. GO SEE IT!

[Quote] the connection between elder and younger gays.

$$$$$?

usually $$$$, but in this case, real estate

Leo counts Henry Wilcox among his clients, which indicates the class of gay men he typically serves. He shouldn’t be poor and he shouldn’t look like he’s dying all the time. He could have gone to Prague.

[QUOTE] I am now 55, and I swore after losing a day of my life to ARCADIA, I would never sit through a multipart play again and I haven't. (Tom Stoppard is such a pretentious ass.)

“Arcadia” is not a multi-part play. It’s only two acts. Perhaps you’re thinking of “The Coast of Utopia” also by Tom Stoppard which is a trilogy of plays totaling nine hours.

Has it closed yet? Absolutely no one is talking about it.

This sounds like the sort of play only Maude Findlay could possibly love.

Down 11 percent this week. Only at 60 percent capacity last week! And this was supposed to be the play of the year?

This and Slave Play were hyped so incredibly, each competing for play of the decade, play of the century, play that changes what plays are and what plays mean forever. I'm going on and on, but the importance draped around these plays was so........forced. If the producers know they've got good shit, they market it intriguingly and lure audiences into those seats.

With Slave Play, you're racist if you don't go, you're racist. If you respond to it (laughter, chortles, etc.), you're scrutinized. If you oppose a black American woman calling her white BRITISH husband a virus before manipulating him to rape her as she would be raped on an Antebellum plantation, you're not woke to "listening." In their reviews, the critics did everything they possibly could to dance around actually reviewing the play (dissertations about their own whiteness and how the play made them look within and all that rubbish) because if any of them condemned the play: racist. Slave Play is a trap. A stunt. Literally. 135 minutes of being imprisoned in a theatre, where a decision to walk out would be noticed by everyone.

The Inheritance. Well, you don't care about AIDS victims if you skip The Inheritance. You don't care about human legacies and you have no heart if you disregard it. To love it means the summary of a handful of brief moments has tricked you into thinking it's something more than it is. To dislike, feel apathy, hell, even hate it, means you don't see all the burbling subtext beneath the very well to do characters who have no problems. Eric Glass is evicted, seconds later Henry Wilcox sets him up in a splendid apartment for $900/month. Some must see the entire iceberg of subtext moving beneath the water's surface. I'd love to know what it is they see. I see a gold digging otter with no personality being set up by Daddy. That's one example of so many flaccid moments, so, so many. But if you don't weep for the extras coming down the aisles, there is something psychologically wrong with you. Right? Are they homages, the rip offs like that? Is Lopez accepting his inheritance from the many dramatists before him and throwing in mountain sized Easter eggs as tribute? Or is he hoping many in 2019 won't be familiar with the plays he's borrowed from? Or others who don't recall them clearly enough? This has been called the play of the century by a legitimate critic. And it's so important. It's so important. And it wants you to know it's SO IMPORTANT!

As does Slave Play, the play where white people are a virus, in contrast to The Inheritance, the play where white people need not worry about viruses. Unless one of the old ones bursts into an uninvited 25 minute monologue about all the dead people in the middle of a dinner party. Or, you know, you visit a bathhouse in Prague.

Even with this diatribe just now, I think the play is talked out. There are no revelations you gradually come to terms with hours or days after seeing it that invite you to join Matthew Lopez in his profound cave. Where portraits of Meryl unevenly hang from the stone walls. And the sea is coming closer and closer.

I wanted it to be at least good, you know? Truly good with a powerful voice. Instead, I get a ghost cliffhanger addressed only in Part Two as a possible dream. Talk about the playwright giving up.

The box office at The Inheritance took another hit last week - down over $138,000 to around $510,000, which is 44% of gross potential. In the wake of its reviews, the signs are not encouraging.

It’s not even going to make it to the end of its limited engagement in March.

Plays [and movies] he’s borrowed from R145? “Borrowed” is being extremely generous. The difference between Inheritance and Slave Play is that people are talking about Slave Play, like it or not. It’s appearing in the media. No one is talking about Inheritance. At all.

No play should be that long.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

That’s quite the thesis, R145.

Fancy a drink?

Justice is served. 🤘

R149, I would not say Slave Play is "cleaning up." It's always on TDF for half price, right alongside The Inheritance.

Saw both parts in one day. Easily could be cut by an hour or two. Nudity is totally gratuitous ( never thought I would say that). In general, the detailed sex scenes/descriptions seemed too much, including the Prague bathhouse speech. I bawled at the end of Part One and yawned at the end of Part Two. Agree with those who say it was a glorified soap opera. For some reason, it reminded me of Nicholas Nickelby.

Who gets the final bow in The Inheritance?

AIDS

There’s waaay to much rectal bleeding in THE INHERITANCE...

R111, please fix the book for Merrily We Roll Along.

Thank you.

Again R136, nobody has ever lost a day of their life to Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, one of the greatest plays of the last century. Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia was a two-parter and I believe that is what the original poster is moaning about. Justly.

Countdown to closing announcement. How many weeks? 3? 4? They certainly are going to have a VERY rough time making it through the bleak post holiday months.

It had been discussed in another thread how the production was going to deal with John Benjamin Hickey also directing Plaza Suite. It looks like Tony Goldwyn will be temporarily taking over the role of Henry Wilcox.

I have already seen it but I have to say that I would love to see Goldwyn in the part. I honestly thought that Hickey was one of the weaker parts of the show. And Henry is described as some beautiful golden god when his eventual husband first meets him in 1981. Much more believable description of a young Goldwyn.

There was never a time when Hickey was a golden god. Goldwyn, yes. Yet another straight man in a play populated with gay, however.

[quote] It looks like Tony Goldwyn will be temporarily taking over the role of Henry Wilcox.

It sort of took me out of the moment when a well-known actor suddenly appeared on the stage. It would have been more convincing if it were someone lessor known

For gay men, The Inheritance is a MUST SEE. I can understand how straight audiences may not feel it such a personal moment--but gay audiences will completely inderstand the subtexts and the references.

We must continue to understand our history and this, more than even Angels in America (which, honestly, doesn't make alot of sense most of the time), is a wonderful retelling of Gay history in NYC

[Quote] It sort of took me out of the moment when a well-known actor suddenly appeared on the stage. It would have been more convincing if it were someone lessor known

Sally Bowles is MEANT to be a bad singor!?!?!

^^^singor^^^

Oh, dear.

I saw 2 day long epics. The original Nicholas Nickleby on Broadway and Peter Brooks' Mahabharata out in Brooklyn.

Both were pure agony from beginning to end(well NN had its moments but too few and there was the incandescent Rees.) Never again.

Sweetie, Angels In America is transcendent. Inheritance is decidedly not.

I saw part one this weekend. Will the eldergays lift their caftans and hiss at me if I say I actually enjoyed it? For what it's worth, I went with a gay friend of mine who is in his mid 60s. I'm in my late 30s. I do agree that comparison to Angels in America are a bit reductive and that this work has perhaps more ambition than it knows what to do with. It can be messy and overly talky, but it was also frequently very funny. And, holy hell, did that ending hit me hard. Is it a masterpiece? No. Did the London critics go overboard in their praise? Yes. But, I was still thoroughly entertained and engrossed and although it doesn't all work, it's nice to see something big and ambitious as opposed to the usual new 90 minute in-and-out piece.

I meant to say, my friend who went with me had a similar reaction. The audience, which at our matinee appeared to be mostly gay men from their 30s-70s, seemed to enjoy the production as well.

Very important question -- does Heny Wilcox get nude in Part 2? One of the best parts of Network was being seated house left in the orchestra and being inches away from Tony Goldwyn's still gorgeous, big, juicy ass in slacks that seemed to be clinging to him for life. God bless whoever the seamstress was on that show.

[quote] Angels In America is transcendent.

Most of Angels in America is a gobbledy-gook of plotlines mashed together. We're all supposed to assume there are some great themes going on because we can't make sense of it at face value.

[quote] does Heny Wilcox get nude in Part 2

No

There certainly is a lot of dross in the second play of Angels in America and doesn't compare to the first play of Angels. It didn't sustain its own brilliance. That seems to be the common problem with both of these plays.

This weekend (Part I), I sat at the end of a row filled with 6 fraus out on a "hen party." Oddly, they loved it more than I did--laughing uproariously and wiping away sentimental tears. They also seemed to have had more chardonnay and cosmos in them than I did.

If you do go to see it, I would suggest dashing out at intermission to the sports bar next door to use the bathroom. The bathrooms at the Ethel Barrymore are all the way downstairs and the lines are huge with lots of old people moving glacially toward them.

My buddy and I would go into the sports bar right up to the bar and order a couple whiskey shots. One of us would go to the bathroom and then we’d switch, take the shots and be back to the theater with plenty of time to spare. No one at the sports bar/restaurant cared or became suspicious.

The bathroom/intermission scene in these ancient theaters can be really horrific for tiny bladder people like me.

[quote] My buddy and I would go into the sports bar right up to the bar and order a couple whiskey shots. One of us would go to the bathroom and then we’d switch, take the shots and be back to the theater with plenty of time to spare. No one at the sports bar/restaurant cared or became suspicious.

You ordered shots, Why should they be suspicious

Yeah, we ordered shots so they *wouldn’t* be suspicious.

Lol R171, I mean, you’re trying it. Neither the Pulitzers nor the Tonys agree with you, awards The Inheritance will never receive.

I've always wondered why these old restrooms are so tiny. Did people not have to piss as much as we do today? Are we drinking and eating more than they did.

so, if The Inheritance closes and Mayor Pete drops out, what is the next gay thing that will draw the vitriol of the DL senseless bitches?

I think you're conflating things R180. DL obviously attracts an older crowd and Pete is doing well with older folks (gay and straight.) I have to imagine the venn diagram of Pete supporters and Inheritance detractors overlaps quite nicely. Not attacking anyone.. just an observation.

Sorry if this is a dumb question -- MINOR SPOILER FOR PART ONE AHEAD --

does anyone know if the actors who appear at the end of Act 1 are employed under some kind of special contract? Their presence is essential but their appearance so brief it seems hard to believe they're fully salaried. Are they the theatre equivalent of film extras?

R181 If you read the thread you will have your answer.

Has it closed yet?

To the person who thought Angels in America was gobbledygook, how many times a week do you go to the gym?

Watching Pose S2 and have to say it’s as much appropriating another generations history as The Inheritance.

Watching Pose S2 is a horrible waste of time. Don't do it.

Has it closed yet?

It’s playing at 54% capacity and 38% gross and dropped 200k over the holidays, and now comes the nightmare of January. When will this turkey be put out of its misery?

Let's hope, R188.

This is actually a great play. It didn’t need to be in 2 parts, yet it is still a wonderfully written work.

The truth is straight audiences don’t care so much about the gay experience to keep any such play, let alone two, run a long time

[Quote] To the person who thought Angels in America was gobbledygook, how many times a week do you go to the gym?

While infused with genius writing, Angels really doesn’t make that much sense. The audience has to try to put pieces together because something so beautiful must mean something

I agree, R190. I think it is a very well-written play. But even for someone who didn't like it (which is perfectly valid), I don't understand the posters here who are actively tracking every dollar it earns because they're rooting so desperately for it to close. Why is its failure so important to you? Are you the producer of another show waiting for it to tank so you can take that theater? If not, I don't see why it matters to you how long it runs. No one is trying to force you to go back and see it again.

R192 Because we don't like pretentiousness.

R193 Is that an ironic statement?

Tell that to Angels In America R190.

Ugh, stupid is back at R191.

Bummer. I can't make it back to NY until late February. I hope I'll get a chance to catch pt 2.

It was fantastic. Fuck off.

Deadly and self-importantly long. Close already.

Fuck you a dozen times, r30.

R30 nails it, especially with that piece-of-shit SLAVE PLAY.

Which gay thing do we hate the most, The Inheritance or Mayor Pete?

discuss amongst yourselves

R202 -- someone else asked that question further up the thread and I know you're just having a laugh, but it doesn't quite work because Mayor Pete is actually very popular with eldergays. It's younger, more progressive voters who aren't feeling Pete. I would suspect that the reverse is true of The Inheritance.

just pondering it leaves me so verklempt

SPOILER FOR PART 1 BELOW.....

so... are all the actors who only appear at the end of Part 1 Equity members or is there some special... exception that Equity provides to have all those actors with literally only one line?

r205 they supposedly have a special contract with special rules. They get about half the usual minimum salary and don't have to arrive at the theater until just before they go on.

Thanks, R206. That makes a bit more sense. Though, even at half the usual minimum salary, this becomes a VERY large cast. Hope they can make it through a couple more months so I can catch part 2.

Has it closed yet?

I don't think so, r208. A friend has tickets either this weekend or next. He couldn't believe it when I said I'd read all the bad reviews. Is Datalounge the only source of bad reviews? Or does my friend just not keep up?

The NY Times review was quite mixed.

R192, I think this is a valid reaction when a production tries to define two generations of gay men who refuse to go along with it.

Who refuse to go along with what?

Wake me up when it closes.

All the people who don’t live on the upper west side?

All the people who don’t live on the upper west side?

Has it closed yet?

Is Tony Goldwyn in yet? Have they added any nude scenes for him?

The good news for sales is that the box office (based on capacity sales) was up 3% last week.

The bad news is that at 59% capacity, THE INHERITANCE is currently the lowest capacity, worst selling show on Bway right now. That is $409K in sales on a potential $1.14K gross each week. They are losing hundreds of thousands each week.

How long can they possibly keep it open?

Oopsy:

That is $409K in sales on a potential $1.14 MILLION gross each week. Not thousand.

Well, their actors are probably getting scale, if that. An entire cast of unknowns, minus Goldwyn and Smith, and there’s no upkeep on set or costumes since there isn’t any. I would imagine it costs virtually nothing to run it other than paying out the crew and theater which is by far its biggest expense. Other than ego, which the producers apparently have in abundance, there’s zero reason to keep it going.

Well maybe the producers like it and are using their own money to keep it going for as long as possible. If I were very rich and a producer it would be something I would do. Prince probably spent so much of his Fiddler money keeping Follies, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd open that he had nothing left when the great Merrily tanked.

"Prince probably spent so much of his Fiddler money keeping Follies, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd open that he had nothing left when the great Merrily tanked."

Uh, hardly, R221. Also, "Sweeney Todd" was a hit. He didn't have to try to keep that show opened.

Sweeney was not a hit. It ran, but lost its investment.

Regardless, Hal Prince didn't pump tons of his own money to keep that or any of the other shows alive.

Uh yes he did. He said Fiddler kept Pacific Overtures opened. If it wasn't his money then whose was it? Huge bomb which stayed open 6 months when it should have closed in six weeks. Sometimes I think it was the most glorious show I saw on Broadway. Of course at other times I think it was Follies! And honestly Follies and Sweeney Todd were such expensive productions that I don't know how they ran as long as they did without pouring blockbuster money into them. You must be crazy if you think Sweeney was a financial hit.

Fiddler in its day was a mint.

My point, R225, is that Prince didn't go bankrupt keeping those shows open.

Where did I mention he went bankrupt? I never said any such thing. Even if he spent a lot of Fiddler money he had many other big successful shows(though not on that level)since his first production. That's why he could afford to support shows he loved. He already had a vacation home in Majorca in the 60s.

Oh. I said he had nothing left. Well I didn't mean it literally but he might have spent so much money keeping other show afloat he couldn't keep doing it. I certainly wish he had. I didn't see it enough. Of course though if he had already done Phantom Merrily could have run longer than Cats.

Saw Part 1 and found it clunky. The first act didn't resonate with me until Walter's monologue. The second not until the break-up scene. I haven't read the whole thread so someone probably mentioned this, but the ending is a steal from LONGTIME COMPANION, but in this case the intended effect is feels unearned. I kept thinking I should be crying but wasn't.

The big issue is that I couldn't care less about Eric (annoying), Toby (ass-wipe), or Adam (another ass-wipe). The rest of the gaggle of queens were stick figures.

Already have tickets to part 2, so hopefully that will be better, or at least not worse.

R229 It only gets worse.

The Prague bathhouse monologue was worthy of a Nifty Archives fantasy tale. I assumed Adam made up the entire thing.

As a New York theatre producer, I love to read a post by someone like r220, who think they know all about it:

"Well, their actors are probably getting scale, if that. An entire cast of unknowns, minus Goldwyn and Smith, and there’s no upkeep on set or costumes since there isn’t any. I would imagine it costs virtually nothing to run it other than paying out the crew and theater which is by far its biggest expense."

Really? You obviously don't know anything about producing, especially in a Broadway house on Production Contract. Go produce something, even at the goddamned Producer's Club, and then come back and tell us all about it.

First of all--"scale"? Broadway contracts are negotiated with AEA.

"No upkeep on sets and costumes because there isn't [sic] any." Really, R220? The actors come to the theatre in their street clothes?

"I would imagine it costs virtually nothing to run it" Exactly. That's what you imagine, R220. Based on nothing.

Look at a Playbill, hunty. Look at everyone involved. And then remember the playwright, who gets a piece of it all.

I'm not R232 and I didn't bother to say anything before because R220's post is so stupid, but R232 reminded me with their post about how naive R220 is.

A friend saw both parts this weekend and loved it. I hope you all are wrong who say it's closing.

I work in the business you dumb cunts. Compared to other shows the show cost basically nothing to run. You think it compares to something like Wicked which has actual upkeep and salaries to pay? Shut the fuck up, you fucking morons. The only reason the show is still running is because it’s fucking CHEAP.

Honestly, who fucking cares. It’ll be gone and forgotten in the next few months.

Oh, dear, Mary R235 has stated her position because she works "in the business." Darling, selling drinks at intermission is not exactly working in the business.

Has it closed yet?

No one said it was the most expensive thing on Broadway r235. But it certainly costs a lot more than r220 intimates. The cost of the show doesn't matter. If it's cheap by B'way standards, that's great, and may enable it to last longer, and perhaps gain a following. It really doesn't matter how expensive it is, if it's not making its weekly nut, it ain't gonna last. And no, not all shows have the cost that Wicked does. It takes a lot of money to keep a show like that to run. But to say that it The Inheritance is costs almost nothing, and imply that there are the salaries are less, or non existent is absurd. But do you know how expensive a hydraulic stage is? Or how much it costs to have the IATSE people on the deck to run the mutherfucker? Or what union minimus are for AEA, IATSE and others, the cost of renting the theatre, publicity, rehearsal time, costumes, development, marketing etc. If you are really gonna tell us, then fucking tell us.

Why are DLers hoping this will fail? I thought it was extraordinary.

I agree r240. I think it could have been tightened up a little, but it was, for me, an epic journey that spoke directly to me and my history, coming of age as a gay man in New York City. It is, however, hard for something like this to run a really long time. Just that it actually got a full production on Broadway is wonderful. And that probably only happened due to its success in the West End. Otherwise, it may never have made it to a Broadway house.

other than mayor pete, it's the most convenient gay thing to hate

Not as long as we're still around, R242.

Are the "extras" all the same types as the main cast or are they more diverse in age and looks and stuff.

They were all young when I saw it, many of them VGL. Of course, only VGL people died of AIDS.

R244,

When I saw it, the extras were diverse (mostly young black and some Latin guys. I don’t recall any Asian guys) and I wouldn’t say VGL. Several were over weight.

They’re different every time, right? Or do they rotate groups?

They were NOT very good looking. haha. Very Average just like the main cast.

Saw it in previews and enjoyed it. Part 1 esp.

Doing Parts 1 and 2 in one day next week (matinee and evening)!

Anything I should know in advance (besides an advance trip to the restrooms)? How long is the dinner break? Where does the cast hang between shows?

[quote]Where does the cast hang between shows?

The Equity call board?

Oh, this was not good. Everything is 100% on the nose, whether the characters are talking to the audience or explaining things for the third or fourth time. Something like this shows you the artistry and intellectual skill Stoppard and Kushner brought to similar scope. Even McNally towers in comparison.

Are you guys sure it's closing soon? They've got dates posted through June.

"Everything is 100% on the nose, whether the characters are talking to the audience or explaining things for the third or fourth time."

I recently say THE LEHMAN TRILOGY at an NT Live screening (didn't want to pay Broadway prices), and that is a good example of a play where the three actors are, for the most part, telling you the story while acting out certain portions. But somehow it works because it covers a long period of time in 3 acts and the three actors - Simon Russell Beale, Ben Mile, and Adam Godley - are superb.

THE INHERITANCE is an example of a playwright who somehow manages to do too much and too little at the same time.

Contemplating doing a marathon of Parts 1 and 2 on a Wednesday trip to the city, but...

Who's seeing the matinee performances, especially on a weekday? Gay tourists? Somehow I don't think this show is getting the matinee ladies in from Jersey.

Or maybe it is?

Do any of the characters wear jockstraps?

I'm amazed there hasn't been more discussion of the bodies on display. This IS still DL, isn't it?

The actor playing Adam/Leo is completely nude at least once, then in revealing briefs several times in the play. The scene in Cherry Grove features most of the cast in speedos, trunks, etc. Many of them have very average bodies (by contemporary Bway standards), but there are some stunning bodies on display, at least briefly.

Ewww. NO. Stop trying to make this show happen. Nobody cares.

Oh, stuff it, r258.

It really is that boring. The Adam/Leo actor is terrible in both roles, so the nudity feels desperate but still falls flat. I felt obligated to see this, but it really was exhausting.

SPOILER ALERT

I got confused at the end of Part 2. Was surprised to see Henry Wilcox at Eric's 40th Birthday since they had, I assumed, divorced some years ago. Then we have the guy playing Leo tell Henry, "I changed your name to Henry Wilcox", which was that character's name throughout the play. So I thought, "Are we back to the very beginning with all theses actors onstage assuming roles?" But then after that there's an exchange between Henry and Walter, using those names. Did I miss something or is this just more of the playwright's sloppy writing?

The two long sex-related scenes were gratuitous and overdone...and not sexy at all since they came off like bad online porn. Someone upthread mentioned Nifty.org, which was 100% right.

BTW, when I saw Part 2, we saw the understudy as Eric. He was very earnest and rather dull, but he wasn't remotely Jewish. According to the Playbill, he understudies multiple roles.

R259 Maybe you should go back to see it and keep wasting your life. You might keep it from closing, but I doubt it. haha.

Just saw Part 1. I heard about its 'issues' and it was very manipulative.

I almost vomited when the (very hot!) Jasper said "our trans siblings" and when they name checked Marsha P Johnson and Silvia Rivera in the same breath as Stonewall (I wanted to scream out " they weren't there!!!)

Toby was the best actor in my opinion.

Adam had a great body but I couldn't buy him as "beautiful" tough his headshots look much better.

Who is straight? From what I read it sounds like all 3 leads (Toby, Adam and Eric) are??? I read that the hottest to me, Jasper is engaged to a woman, so.... :(

stupid show

The guy playing Jasper is smokin’ hot...and straight.

So, what’s the truth to the rumors this show is about to close?

The LGBT Ivy League alum association announced a theatre date to the show in mid-March.

So that's no guarantee, but it suggests the show is scheduled to run for at least 4-5 more weeks.

the queens here have been pissing on its grave for months

is it true the actors for Eric, Toby and Eric's hot boss with curly hair are all str8?

once it closes they focus all of their venom on mayor pete

Closing in March.

BYEEEEEEEEEEE

Lots of think pieces about the cold reception in NY and why it’s closing. The simple explanation is IT’S NOT GOOD.

Yes, R269. There were virtually no gay actors in a show about gay men. Completely ridiculous.

wah wah

[quote]Lots of think pieces about the cold reception in NY and why it’s closing.

I think this is one of the more interesting ones:

BYE BITCH!!!! Your play sucked. Pretentious assholes.

I live here in London and I’m one of the few gay men I know who didn’t like THE INHERITANCE, mostly because of its mawkish sentimentality. Not to mention its clunky structure.

But I have no problem with straight actors playing gay roles, and I think it’s silly to make it a requirement. It’s not a documentary. That said, I’ve never been able to reconcile the fact that the lead, Kyle Soller, is straight when he pings to the high heavens to me. I’ve never heard any gossip about him either, so he’s either actually straight or fucking brilliant at not showing his cards.

[quote] never been able to reconcile the fact that the lead, Kyle Soller, is straight when he pings to the high heavens to me. I’ve never heard any gossip about him either, so he’s either actually straight or fucking brilliant at not showing his cards.

I thought the exact same thing.

but i wanted Jasper or Toby to be guy because I want tot have sex with them, not Eric. :)

Is Matthew Lopez now legally able to reconfigure this into a no-longer-than-three-hour single viewing experience? Or is he enjoined because someone else owns the rights to The Inheritance?

It was a wonderful play. Its problem was it’s epic two-play length. Not many people want to be forced to see two plays. Heck even the Harry Potter plays won’t survive forever.

Plus straight audiences which make up the bulk of playgoers just don’t identify with gay stories

I saw Part One opening night. Finally went back to Part Two tonight. I liked Part 2. He should cut it down and make it more of Part 2 than Part 1. I detest Part One. Tony Goldwyn killed that shit. Can he be nominated? haha. Can they just nominate Part Two? The whole play has a lot of corniness to it. I think they'll nominate the actors playing Tobey, Walter, and Margaret. I saw a recast for Adam/Leo and loved him. Bradley James Tejeda. Prefer him to the orginal guy. I think Part 2 could make a killer movie. I wish there were two different people playing Adam and Leo.

Byyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I hope you gays are happy about killing the run of a great play about gays.

How did this cost $9 million to put on? No stars (OK, Hickey was a name, I guess). No sets--just a hydraulic platform. Only one prop to speak of--a dollhouse. No costumes--the guys just wore stuff of the rack.

I looked like it was done for $90K.

Truth R284.

Wah wah R283. And the gays didn’t kill it, dear.

R284, Lots of backstage people required by the union

I sat in the first row because I have a foot fetish and it was like a three hour porn for me. That said, why are the characters barefoot with the exception of the three older characters?

Pete Buttigieg saw this today. Looking to fill that post-presidential campaign schedule. Tickets start from only $38.

Yeah, R289, he starts his surrogate duties for Biden in NYC tomorrow (TV).

My friend was there and also got to take a pic with Pete and Chasten.