The Inheritance - YV

Can't really agree with that, always found Kushner's charcters (in Angels in America) quite artificial in comparison.

Maybe it is a generational thing, I found Inheritance to be much more 'now' while Angels has this patina of a 'classic' by now.

Have to say I agree with this. Really didn't get on with it when I saw it at the YV. But was aware in the minority.

Shame

Such a shame it never found its audience - the closing notice isn’t a surprise, there’s been heavy discounts on tickets for the majority of the run. Would have been amazing if they could have filmed it and released on Netflix or similar, though I’m not sure how well it would translate onto screen.

I designed this neon sign and had it custom made, currently hanging above my bed. The final 2 words of the play which will always remind me to not take life for granted and to make the most of the opportunities I’ve been given that so many didn’t have.

Was about to post it myself, it's such an interesting read!

I dunno, Perestroika is still too long and incoherent, or was in the NT revival.

It's a slightly scattershot take, but some of the points definitely ring true. I found this:

 “it must have a little bit romantic for London audiences to see New York gays,” explained Sam Maher, a Broadway producer and influencer marketing consultant. It was “probably so cool for British audiences to see what life is like” for homosexual men across the pond, he said.

...fairly patronising. They go to the theatre and eat pizza and have drinks and talk? How exotic! So cool!

What makes much more sense to me is the marketing and financially difficulty of a two part Broadway show that isn't a big tourist draw like Harry Potter, doesn't have an enormous celebrity in a role, and especially one that didn't grab the critics. Maybe the bad reviews were to do with setting it in the New York metropolitan scene as the author says, maybe it was too close to home. Maybe it's the fact that the play was set in America but produced in Britain and became so well received that it put up everyones backs on the transfer.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a very very good play that I don't think deserved the reception it received. On Broadway more than anywhere else a bad set of reviews will destroy a production before it even gets going, and the lukewarm reception it received did it in much more than it's lack of "influencer marketing campaigns" or the fatigue of New Yorkers about the concept of gay men travelling to Fire Island.

First off...what an unlikeable person...

A fair bit of 'spin' in there as well.

While the show was a hit with the critics and sold-out at the Young Vic when it was £10-£40 to see both parts, it didn't do at all well in the West End. It was on discount sites from the day it opened until it's closing was announced which seemed to create more interest. But not many lined up to pay £250 for something they could've seen for £80 a few months earlier. It didn't do Caroline or Change 'bad', but it was far from a hit once it made the move.

What is missing from the article is the fact that if a show doesn't 'crossover' and become something the general public want to see, it just isn't going to do well. That is very difficult for a 'gay' play to do, let alone a 2 part one. Angels in America had just flopped. Torch Song flopped BADLY on Broadway after it's successful Off Broadway run. If those 2 classics couldn't do well with star studded casts, how was a new play full of nobodies ever going to put bums on seats? Boys in the Band was a smash, but it was full of the 'hottest' gay actors working in America and the play hadn't been revived for many years. There aren't enough gays in New York to make something a success, especially when if requires 6 hours of your life to support.

I also think a lot of American gay men 'buck up' at supporting things that they may feel is specifically 'aimed' at getting their dollars.

Boys in the Band was also not about the AIDS crisis.

People go to Broadway to be entertained - most shy away from heavy stuff. They’re paying so much money for tickets they *must* have a good time for it - most won’t risk paying to see something difficult or confronting or complex.

We have a different play-going culture in London that is driven by the subsidised sector and facilitated by (until recently) much cheaper ticket prices. Off-Broadway tackles the same kind of subjects and has a similarly adventurous audience but it doesn’t drive the culture of Broadway in the same way.

Even star names do not sell out most serious plays on Broadway.



Also kind of startling to see so much of the criticism being based around ‘woke’ ideas - that the cast are straight (I mean, I have no idea whether the main cast are actually straight or not, due to them not being famous enough for their private lives to be the subject of gossip) and that it’s not diverse enough, that the Republican character gets too much stage-time. There is clearly a pre-conceived idea about what stories should be told on stage and how they should be presented among some taste-makers, and it’s getting in the way of them actually engaging with plays on their own terms. And that’s obviously not just applying to this play, but if you don’t understand why this *particular* story features a prominent conservative, then you can’t understand what it is doing.

I was referring to the Forbes piece’s thesis.

The thing is, a play using Howard’s End as its template cannot do so without a politically conservative character at its centre, or a main character who is upper-class, politically progressive, privileged and and naive.

Obviously a certain section of the audience just didn’t want to see that, and it seems they couldn’t engage with the piece beyond their dislike of that main conceit.



Was that the fault of the expectations raised by the marketing? Perhaps. But The Forbes article doesn’t understand why London critics loved the play so much (that thing about exotic NY gays is clearly bollocks) which makes me think there’s a more profound disconnect going on with the play itself.

I would hardly call hoping to every once in awhile see yourself represented in the stories on stage, in television, et al as "narcissistic," but maybe I am misunderstanding your point. That some of those complaining do not reduce their gay identity merely to "who they are sexually attracted to" is exactly why these criticisms are being raised. They want to see the complexity, the intersectionality, and the layers of their identity in some of the stories being told.