The Inheritance — Page 3

I just saw Part 2 this past weekend (saw Part 1 back in September) and boy Part 2 was even more emotional for me! Part 2 was roughly 3.5 hours (including intermission and a brief pause) so it's quite long.

If it does come to NYC, I wonder if Matthew Lopez will make any changes in the script.

I find that Lopez is a plagiarist. Why? This was the most over-hyped gay theatre production of FRIENDS to date, with no due attribution or knods for all the work that came before, and told a better story.

Shall we even begin? Rips off Angels in America, Stoppard's invention of love (the big Forster speeches, culminating in the play title) and tries to legitimise itself by repeating "NEw York City' a billion times. The work also takes some major themes from other new playwrights not as lucky as Lopez to benefit from the hype PR machines.

Gay writer turns sex & drug addict: = 'Leave the Lights On'

Dead people come back and state their names: = 'Longtime Companion'

Same kills himself outside of NYC in a car crash = Jackson Pollock story

Writing teacher with young horny boys around tables being excited? 'Dead Poets Society' and not to mention 'The History Boys'

"Forster" has posthumous conversation culminating the the play title = 'The Invention of Love' (scene when Wilde takes the stage and has the EXACT argument with AE Housmann)- Stoppard's masterpiece.

Everyone gathers for a party and argues: Boys in the band.

Lines about "illusions in forms of truth" or whatever it was? TENNESSEE WILLIAMS Glass Menagerie... (I wish he'd come back from the dead and throw one at you).

And then where to begin again with all the Kushner/Angels ripoffs? How abotu just one: Lopez even has aped the infamous twilight with the black man scene from Angels in there...same tone, same lament... Please. Sampling 101. At least in the music industry you have to pay tribute and royalties.

This is not "important theatre" - this is an appropriation of important theatre.

And the fatal blow to this nonexistent plot: Forster did not want to suffer the same fate as Oscar Wilde. His 'moral shortcomings' assertions were BS.

There is not ONE memorable line in the six hours I sat watching this nonsense, and my backside turning to stone. Derivative nonsense for an ignorant audience - ironically that bangs on about 'knowing your history' and present little in the way of fact - unless stolen from a real playwright.

Funny how this 'Me, Too' (not to be confused with the legitimate women's issue) crowd shouts endlessly about Trump and his right wing of history-revision, and this play relies and feeds upon just that. The formula: sell it quick to a bunch of unsuspecting twenty-somethings who think all things gay began with Rupaul's Drag Race.

How dare a now-40 year old who could never have experienced half what he claims authority over a knowledge he could never have witnessed? How dare this come-lately take the histories of a dead generation and sell it back to us.!?

The ONLY THING that kept me and to return after the first "half" was Samuel Levine's fine work - which carried this limping ignorant crowd-panderer through SIX loathsome hours. Even IF there weren't the plagiarism and cultural theft - is no one awake in the critic arena to call out this priveleged whiteboy showboat for the badly constructed charade it is?

(Oh, people coming to a house to die?? Really? How ON GOLDEN EFFING POND CAN YOU GET!?!). And then there's Redgrave's unintelligible, seemingly drunken, line-skipping "performance" - again, what an absolute MESS.

Kushner write a time-tested requiem. Lopez copied down a sitcom-melodrama. Made for TV.

How this mess got past thinking producers is beyond me (unless you consider the quota system now firmly in place: gay play = check!). Save your money and rent Longtime Companion and a box set of Sex and The City. That's all there is here, if that much. The Young Vic should be ashamed, if not unfunded for producing an un-verified farce.

The only review in London that gets close to objective, and not bowing to the gay-guilt PR noise and brouhaha is Time Out London - which does venture into questioning some of this, (but because someone buys ads from them, still gave it 4 stars.)

Also the Financial TImes. Quotes Heaney "crate full of air" then states "impressive, but almost compeltely empty".

To quote an online comment "If this is the future of theatre, we're all in trouble, chaps." Indeed. We are, and we know it.

I implore people to please wake up to this and other travesties and stop jumping on every bandwagon to rush by - just because it's fashionable. Life is truly a banquet, to paraphrase Auntie Mame, and most new great artists are starving to death. (WHile this nonsense gets produced.)

PLEASE take this rubbish to New York City so it will die the deserved death it has coming, and Mr Michael Riedel can officiate the funeral.

I challenge anyone with a modicum of experience with the gay theatre to get the script, read it, and prove me wrong.

Updated On: 12/17/18 at 02:06 PM

A.Douglas said: "I vehemently disagree with the above review of the piece."

Agreed. One of the major themes/throughlines of the piece is using older stories to tell your own and retelling Howards End through a modern gay male perspective. Just like this generation of gay men owe a debt to and stand on the shoulders of the generation of gay men before us, this play stands on the shoulders and pays respect to the plays that came before it.

nasty_khakis said: "A.Douglas said: "I vehemently disagree with the above review of the piece."

Agreed. One of the major themes/throughlines of the piece is using older stories to tell your own and retelling Howards End through a modern gay male perspective. Just like this generation of gay men owe a debt to and stand on the shoulders of the generation of gay men before us, this play stands on the shoulders and pays respect to the plays that came before it."

That's all fine well and good except: it's not a nod, or a attribute. Go ahead, let the keyboard war ensue - post and post , while credible work such as ANGELS closes in NYC after a short run and so does Torch Song - which I venture few of this McAudience has seen..

I maintain: every single inch of the thing was derivative and lifted. It does not stand on shoulders, it stomps dead bodies in the mud.

Don't like it? Stop posting opinions and hollow defenses and prove it wasn't a lift, and the direct parallels noted to what , SEVEN different works are incorrect. Go on...do the work.

Updated On: 12/17/18 at 05:01 PM

Scotarts said: "Prove it wrong then. It's a RIPOFF."



Everything you wrote in your childish temper tantrum is ridiculous and (hilariously) mean spirited. There, I "proved you wrong."

P.S. Switch to decaf.

Updated On: 12/17/18 at 05:08 PM

Scotarts said: "A RuPaul meme. I rest my case."

Scotarts, having seen the recent Angels in America production and the recent Torch Song AND having seen The Inheritance...your arguments are absurd. Are you claiming this work is plagiarizing NINE different works AND a person's entire life? By your logic, Angels in America was a rip-off. People died of AIDS in And the Band Played On. Both of Kushner's Angels plays stole their three act structure from Torch Song. There were angels in the BIBLE... And that's barely scratching the surface!



Merely having elements that are the same as those in other shows does not make something plagiarism. You can find it derivative. But you seem to misunderstand the difference between derivative and plagiarized. You also seem personally offended by the existence of a play you didn't like, which...CALM DOWN.

Sir, I will not even dignify your, what seems to be, very personal attack on this piece with a list of reasons to "prove" its legitimacy. I don't know who you are, or exactly why you disliked this piece so much, but as far as I am concerned, this piece is a phenomenal epic, and moved me very much when I saw it in March.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but, frankly, I don't believe Tom or Tony will be sending cease and desists to Matthew Lopez anytime soon.

"The Inheritance" is not a "ripoff". It has not stolen anyone's intellectual property. It has taken tasteful, cultural and artistic influence from its predecessors (like "Angels" and "Invention of Love", "The Normal Heart" and, of course, "Howard's End"), but it tells a story that is entirely new and relatable. Especially for me, a young, 20-something-year-old gay man in New York City. What Lopez has written has moved me very deeply, and was almost entirely how I felt inside, all the thoughts, feelings and opinions that I did not have the proper way to verbalize or write out. Matthew Lopez has done that for me, and many, many, many other people who have attended a performance of this play. I consider this to be a jewel of a piece of Theatre, and one that will continue to move its viewers. But, I digress.

*Gets off soapbox*

I wouldn't go as far as calling it plagiarism but from watching/reading the play, it did remind me a lot of Howards End. I don't know Matthew Lopez's ethnic background nor do I know if he's Hispanic/Latino/Filipino but if he were, it would been really interesting to see if he added any elements of the play from his own teenager/20s experience as a gay man (presuming he's gay.)

Scotarts said: "Same kills himself outside of NYC in a car crash = Jackson Pollock story

Everyone gathers for a party and argues: Boys in the band"


Ah yes, the only time these events ever happen. Can't imagine why everyone doesn't pay royalties to Mart Crowley for "everyone gathers for a party and argues" stories since he clearly invented that. And Jackson Pollock is the only person who ever died in a car crash under the influence.

"I haven't seen or even read the play. "

No, THAT covers it.

Go ahead, play tright into their marketing ploy - defend, don't read, don't see and let this fraud stand and rake in the cash. When your generation gets older, you're going to wonder: "Wait, what happened.?"