The Inheritance is a play by Matthew López, inspired by the 1910 novel Howards End by E. M. Forster. The play premiered in London at the Young Vic in March 2018, before transferring to Broadway in November 2019.
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Productions
Off-West End (2018)
The play was commissioned by Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut. The play was produced in London at the Young Vic Theatre under the direction of Stephen Daldry in March 2018. The play was staged in two parts of over three hours each, intended to be viewed sequentially, and reimagines E. M. Forster's Howards End as "a lovingly wry portrait of New York's gay community", "with gay men from different generations standing in for Forster's straight people from different classes". Lopez found parallels between his own life and Forster's closeted existence before the partial-decriminalisation of homosexuality, telling The New Yorker: "We're so far apart, and yet when I read his diaries—that’s me. That's me, a hundred years ago, as a closeted white man in England". Lopez has described that the greatest theatrical influence, despite comparisons with Tony Kushner's Angels in America as being Gatz, Elevator Repair Service's 2-part, 8-hour adaptation of The Great Gatsby, inspiring his use of "self-narration".
The Inheritance examines love between gay men in contemporary New York a generation after the early AIDS crisis. It asks what the current generation owes to its forebears with Rebecca Read writing in The New Yorker that lead character Eric Glass, "as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, has a personal connection to generational catastrophe, and is therefore better primed to comprehend the history of the gay community’s devastation".
West End (2018)
The production transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End on September 21, 2018 and was produced by Tom Kirdahy, Sonia Friedman, and Hunter Arnold.
The Inheritance won Best Play at the London Evening Standard Theatre Award 2018. The Inheritance also won Best New Play, Best Director for Stephen Daldry and Best Actor for Kyle Soller at both the 2019 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the 2019 Laurence Olivier Awards, also winning an Olivier for Best Lighting for Jon Clark.
Broadway (2019–2020)
The play premiered on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on September 27, 2019 in previews, with the official opening on November 17. The production features Lois Smith as Margaret, with Kyle Soller and John Benjamin Hickey, among others, reprising their roles from the London production.
In December 2019, it was announced that Tony Goldwyn would replace Hickey for a four-month stint beginning in January 2020, while Hickey was set to direct a revival of Plaza Suite. However, in February 2020, it was announced that The Inheritance would close on March 15, after 46 previews and 138 regular performances. On March 12, the final four performances were cancelled when all Broadway theatres closed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other notable productions
A German language production of The Inheritance titled Das Vermächtnis, directed by Philip Stölzl, premiered at Munich's Residenztheater on January 30, 2022. The production was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen as one of ten "noteworthy" productions of 2022. Das Vermächtnis also premiered in Hanover on April 22, 2022, as well as at the Theater Münster on December 3, 2022 and most recently at the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater in Bamberg on October 6, 2023. Part one of the Bamberg production was invited to the Bayerische Theatertage in 2024.
In 2022, The Inheritance received its first major regional production in the United States when SpeakEasy Stage Company presented the play at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, running from April 22 to June 11, 2022. The production was directed by Paul Daigneault, with movement and intimacy direction by Yo-EL Cassell, and featured scenic design by Cristina Todesco, costume design by Charles Schoonmaker, lighting design by Karen Perlow, and original sound and music by Dewey Dellay. In a review for The Boston Globe, the production was described as an ambitious and emotionally resonant staging that emphasized the play’s exploration of intergenerational memory, community, and the enduring impact of the AIDS crisis. The production received eight Elliot Norton Award nominations, receiving three awards: Outstanding Play - Midsize Theater, Outstanding Featured Performance - Midsize Theater (Mishka Yarovoy), and Outstanding Ensemble.
A West Coast premiere production directed by Mike Donahue opened at the Geffen Playhouse on September 13, 2022, and had an extended run until November 27, 2022. The play was cited as "better in Los Angeles than on Broadway" by Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty. An audio adaptation was later released by Audible Theater in March 2023.
ARV, the Swedish version of The Inheritance had its premiere on November 5, 2022, at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. It was chosen to be part of the theatre biennale 2023 and won the Nöjesguiden award for best performance 2023 and was nominated for a QX-award for best production 2023. It ran again in 2024/2025 in a partly new version at The Royal Dramatic Theatre. ARV was directed by Carl Johan Karlson.
Brazilian Portuguese language production of The Inheritance, called A Herança, premiered at Teatro Vivo, São Paulo, on March 9, 2023, and ran until April 30, 2023. The play was translated into Portuguese by Zé Henrique de Paula, who also directs and produces it. Bruno Fagundes, the other local producer, performs the role of Eric Glass in the Brazilian version. Due to its success, a new season, this time placed at Teatro Raul Cortez, São Paulo, premiered on June 1, 2023, and ran until July 30, 2023.
Cast and characters
Notable replacements
Henry Wilcox: Tony Goldwyn
Critical response
Theatre critic Dominic Cavendish, writing for The Daily Telegraph, called The Inheritance “perhaps the most important American play of this century so far.” Variety ‘s Matt Trueman considered the play to be a "vast, imperfect and unwieldy masterpiece that unpicks queer politics and neoliberal economics anew. In addressing the debt gay men owe to their forebears, it dares to ask whether the past hasn’t also sold the present up short."
Michael Billington, in his review for The Guardian, gave The Inheritance four out of five stars. According to him: “Daldry’s crystalline production pierces your emotional defences, raises any number of political issues and enfolds you in its narrative.” He admired the “rollercoaster energy and high entertainment value” of the play, but “found its exclusive maleness limiting” given that “the only woman we meet does not appear until the end.” On occasion, he also felt that “Lopez was exhibiting his own virtuosity at the expense of [a] character’s believability.” In a later article, Billington praised Paul Hilton's performance in the play. The Inheritance placed 15th on The Guardian's list of the 50 greatest theatre shows since 2000.
The show received mostly mixed reviews on Broadway. Ben Brantley from The New York Times praised the cast performances and noted the continued experiential relevance of the AIDS crises, but felt that “the breadth doesn't always translate into depth." Writing in The New Yorker, Rebecca Mead described The Inheritance as "less intellectually demanding" and "strik[ing] an upper-middlebrow tone" as compared to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America which also explores similar themes within the context of the AIDS crisis.
Terrence McNally, author of the 1994 play Love! Valour! Compassion!, which offers a contemporary take on the AIDS crisis, said that "as an 80-year-old survivor, observer, and participant of the many years covered in the play" he had never had such a strong response, referring to the experience of watching a play about the early AIDS crisis amid an audience of gay men of both the survivors' generation and the subsequent generation, that of the protagonists.