The Inheritance – Young Vic

The Inheritance is a 7 hour marathon which draws the audience into the lives of gay men living in current day America. Some of the play’s themes shadow EM Forster’s’ novel – Howards end. Although the play’s pretext describes it as a play about aids; this is only an idea that draws the concepts together – self truth and hope. Throughout the first part of the play, EM Forster is there, helping to give substance to the ideas proposed by the characters. There are almost two different subplots running throughout the play. The first focuses on Toby Darling (Andrew Burnap) as he confronts himself and questions whether he should tell the truth. The other follows Eric (Kyle Soller) as he shadows Walter’s footsteps and learns to help those who once again, are not accepted by society.

The play starts out on a comical note as Toby over dramatically declares that high society will forever hate him, he threw up over Meryl Streep, this quickly changes to something more serious. Toby views himself as someone bought up among socialites, sadly this is the opposite of the truth. Throughout the play he continues to try to force this facade. His stunning Broadway debut, a supposed ‘true story’ but as Eric, his boyfriend, points out is the person whom he aspires to be. Toby is always running from his past as he fears the confrontation with it, so much so that he breaks up with his boyfriend, Eric for someone who knows nothing about him.

Eric is the opposite of the self obsessed Toby – and it’s only after their separation that he finally feels liberation. He befriends Walter (Paul Hilton), the husband of a billionaire, Republican Henry (to the horror of his friends) who’s purposefully never home. Over time Eric manages to convince Walter to open up so Walter tells him about Henry, his farmhouse house and what it was like growing up during aids period. He asks Eric to name multiple friends – named friends “he’s dead” – to illustrate the monumental pain and loss during the crisis. He continues to recount stories of his old farm house in upstate New York that, despite the complaints of Henry, is where he bought men with Aids to die. This resonates with Eric and the soonly deceased Walter leaves it to him to continue his legacy in the modern day.  

Throughout the torrent of characters comes Leo, a man who possibly taught Toby to love, albeit briefly. He appears as the rebound from Adam, whom Leo is his doppelganger. He has a sense of desperation about him- in a similar way to Toby’s as between them they share love maybe for the first time. It’s when his character finally meets EM Forster that he questions what he is meant to do in life and changes his current actions.

The second part of the play focuses on the idea of redemption. Toby runs away from society to his hometown – there he writes another play, this one a mess, depicting the truth about his life for the first time. There is a great moment when he sits in his hotel room questioning whether he should ‘heal or burn’, repeating the phrase over and over again as he finally gives himself the choice of redemption. Although try as he might to accept his past – he realises once looking at his younger self, that he no longer recognises how he came to be and ultimately chooses to ‘burn’.

Throughout Toby’s discovery, Eric befriended Leo and together the arrive at the farmhouse to be greeted by the sole female character played by Vanessa Redgrave. Her heart wrenching story depicts how she treated her son due to his sexuality but once the ultimatum of death (aids) came into play she was there in a heartbeat. After his passing she never felt the urge to leave and helped others in the same situation, hence she is still there then. 

The inheritance is, daresay, the best play that I have seen. Many moments throughout will elicit an emotional response and I couldn’t prevent the tears as the second part drew to a close. The cast perfectly portrayed their characters as they explored themselves – whilst some learned to heal and help others, the rest couldn’t overcome what they had become or done. The two parts ended in similar fashion. The first sees a group of young men clustering around Eric, as you come to understand the men are who Walter bought to the farmhouse to ease their passing. The second shows how many of the dead have reunited again and how many of the characters are immortalized by the house. There is one overarching theme that is constantly repeated, of course it is taken from the novel, contentedness.

On at the Young Vic until May 19th.