Boys in the Band → Angels in America → The Inheritance
10/16/18 (Tues)
I’m glad to see that The Inheritance has moved deservedly from the Young Vic to an open-ended West End run, winning rave reviews in the process. It’s especially interesting to look back on this play in the context of two other powerhouse NY-based gay-themed shows that have been revived in NY and London in recent months, Boys in the Band and Angels in America.
The Inheritance, Part 1: The first half of a seven-hour portrait of gay yuppies in the Trump era — can’t get more contemporary than that. It is reminiscent of Angels in America in its epic canvas, multiple story lines, gay Manhattan setting, AIDS-related theme, broken relationships and up-to-date politics under a conservative government (plus a lead role that would be perfect for Andrew Garfield). But it is not as angry or preachy. Whereas Angels was written and staged at a time when the gay community was still finding its voice in the face of a mysterious deadly virus and social ostracism, the situation has changed drastically in the intervening years, with gays enjoying much higher visibility and widespread acceptance. The real difference is that this generation has no collective memory of the road that others had to travel to put it there, and the theme of the show is how to remember and deal with the past in order to appreciate the present. (Angels has its own issues in how it interprets the past, but that’s another story.)
sekenbanashi 