Play of the Week: The Inheritance

There are two types of people: Angels in America people and The Inheritance people. I am, naturally, in the correct camp of people who prefer Angels. Taylor attended the Broadway production of The Inheritance and enjoyed her marathon two-show day seated alongside Hillary Clinton and Pete Buttigieg, which no doubt clouded her judgment, as it would anyone's. She convinced me to go (I think so she could go again), and we bought tickets for...March 14th, 2020. Obviously, I did not end up seeing it.

I will admit that I had never really given The Inheritance a fair shake, as my mind was made up before I saw or read a single word. As much as playwright Matthew Lopez (I quite enjoyed, and wrote about on this blog, his book for Some Like It Hot) wants to pretend he didn't write an Angels riff, he did. And that's fine. But you don't have to lie about it.

Anyway, Taylor convinced me to hold off on reading it in favor of waiting for a regional production. When Bethesda's Round House Theatre announced it would be opening their 2025-26 season, I knew immediately that I wanted to do both parts in one day, true marathon style. That's for the true sickos and true sickos only.

And I'm glad I waited! The Round House production, directed by D.C. favorite Tom Story and cast with a nice mix of familiar and fresh faces, was not just a great way to spend an entire Saturday (the dinner break gave just enough time to grab Cava and a Nespresso restock), but it's one of the highlights of the DMV theatre year. From the minute we left the house to the minute we arrived home, we were gone for about 12 hours (dogsitter needed and everything!), and few shows are worth that. This was worth that.

I was wrong to not give Lopez's script a fighting chance, as it's quite good. Sad, saucy, sophisticated. The end of Part I made me cry. Nancy Robinette's (God, we are so lucky to have her in D.C.) scene in Part II made me fucking weep. Maybe more Howard's End than Angels in America, but undeniably Angels. It made me want to read E. M. Forster, but I could not possibly add anything else to the nightstand stack right now. Long as hell - Round House says 6 hours and 55 minutes and I think they're undershooting it in an attempt to make it as palatable to normies as they can - and interesting for every second. It's good for the soul. It's nice to have finally seen it.

roundhousetheatre.org