The Inheritance is this generation’s Angels in America
I was blown away by the world premiere of Matthew Lopez’s two-part play about what it means to be a gay man living in 2018
I feel a bit like protagonist Toby Darling in writing this — writing is not something that comes easily to me. But I had to write about this play.
“Only sadists and agents go to first previews”
I am pretty sure I’m not the latter, so maybe I am the former! Inspired by EM Forster’s novel Howards End and directed by Olivier and Tony award-winning Stephen Daldry, The Inheritance is a two-part epic that dives head first into the heady and hedonistic world of the New York gay scene.
What does it mean to be a gay man a generation after the Aids crisis? How do we memorialise our forefathers? How do we stick together as a gay community in an increasingly fractured world — a world of Grindr, crystal meth and Trump?
I watched the world’s first previews of The Inheritance on consecutive Fridays (2 and 9 March 2018) at London’s Young Vic. They blew me away.
How do I find the words to express how this play spoke to me so powerfully in so many ways? I will try with these two: beautiful and heartbreaking.
“To fall in love is to make an appointment with heartbreak”
How does it feel to love? How does it feel to fear the act of making love? How does it feel to be missing an entire generation of lovers and mentors, who could have guided you?
I have talked about how I often feel like I am standing on the shoulders of giants as a gay man living happily and healthily with HIV in 2018. I never knew what it was like to lose friend after friend, to attend funeral after funeral, to be shunned by a society gripped by homophobia.
All I knew as a teenager taking my first tentative steps out on the gay scene 20 years ago was the fear and stigma surrounding HIV. I was always struck that there were no role models, so few older gay men to look up to and to learn from. It is only much more recently, as I have become involved in HIV advocacy, that I realise our collective loss so keenly.
The fear of contracting HIV stalked my first sexual encounters and relationships — “always use a condom, Anthony” — and on the rare occasions I didn’t use protection I lived with unbearable fear and guilt until my next test. It is a huge burden that I struggled with, and many of the gay men I know — HIV negative and HIV positive alike — still struggle with. PrEP and the U=U message about HIV treatment as prevention give me cause for hope for the future.
Last year I was enrapt by the National Theatre’s critically acclaimed revival of Angels in America, which is currently playing on Broadway. Angels is undoubtedly a masterpiece. It moved me profoundly. Without wishing spoil the plot, The Inheritance clearly pays homage to Angels — one of the younger characters wears angel wings in one particularly powerful scene. I want to make a bold claim for The Inheritance: it will be this generation’s Angels in America.
“To save oneself, one first had to save the world”
HIV and the Aids crisis are central themes throughout, but for audiences to dismiss The Inheritance as just an ‘Aids play’ would be to do it a massive disservice. It has so much more to say: about our shared history as gay men, and what it means for us to have friends, to be a part of a community, and to support and love each other.
If you are a gay man — whatever your age — you need to see The Inheritance. To paraphrase protagonist Eric Glass: to know who you are you need to know where you came from.
- The Inheritance had its opening night on 28 March and ran until 19 May 2018 at London’s Young Vic.
- It transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End from 21 September 2018 until 19 January 2019.
- In November 2018, it won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play.
