The Inheritance - YV

Ah. I did not cross reference. Thank you!

I have not seen The Inheritance yet, but it must be incredibly difficult for writers these days. I worry that censuring individual pieces of art for not including an even distribution of society as we see it may result in writers creating tick-box work that will end up feeling rather homogenised and streaky.

I think theatres need to be diverse in terms of representation; they should be looking to programme a variety of work that is inclusive to audience everywhere. Not at individual pieces will be able to do that in and of themselves, and I don't think they should face criticism for that.

I think in this case it's particularly striking because it's based on a female-centred book but entirely recast with men, apart from one star who is in there because she's a link to the 1992 movie the playwright evidently fell in love with. The play includes heterosexual male characters - Wilcox's sons - but erases his daughter. And all the characters/actors are very easy on the eye: the main speaking roles are buff white men, and the supporting cast are all of a similar bodytype. Fair enough if you are wanting a fanfic fantasy, but it makes the play feel more like it exists in a narrow bubble rather than being the 'state of the nation' or timely social commentary that the publicity suggests it wants to be.

Well said. My husband criticised the play for erasing the women who died of AIDS but I just put it down to him over-compensating as a feminist white man. He holds other white men to a higher standard, yetI viewed it as a piece of gay male theatre and that it was not telling the story of women who died of AIDS (or African men for that matter.)

I saw Art at the Old Vic last year and don’t remember people complaining that it was just about straight white men. Why should theatre (art, TV, all culture, essentially) from people who are not “the default” be held to this higher standard of representation?

Huge applause for the idea that theatres need to think programmatically about inclusion. That’s probably the right level. Also, a theatre-goers we need to support a range of voices.

I saw Art at the Old Vic last year, and I was not shy about complaining how dull I found these dull straight white middle-class men and their dull straight white middle-class problems. I honestly hated every single character and although the play was entertaining enough I'm glad we've moved past that period where it was a staple of the West End and held up as an example of great theatre. If that helps. 

Hot cross buns are the best! (Also just a heads up that I edited that post to try and make myself a little clearer, if anyone's wondering why my quoted words are different. Definitely not to try and mislead or anything. )

I don't have any hard data to back it up, but anecdotally I find I can barely swing a cat in theatre without hitting a cis gay man. I would probably hazard a guess that the top tier are still likely white straight men, with a handful of women thrown in. But we aren't short on white gay men making decisions in theatre that's for sure. 

Back to the play and what it does or doesn't represent. It's always been a problem in "Gay Theatre" and "Aids Theatre" that the big plays (ie the ones with critical and commercial attention) have skewed towards, white cis gay men. Partly, for the early plays I don't really blame a sense of 'writing from the heart' about what was happening to you, in your radius. Many of these were passion political pieces. And while we could cry 'why didn't you have black friends or women friends you could write about' that's not very helpful. 

For anything written today, and I hold myself to account on this as well when working on creative and academic work on the subject, it is remiss to focus soley on that group, especially if trying to write a kind of 'contemporary response'. 

But as @baemax says, he maybe Lopez does indeed live his life in a bubble that only the like of Vanessa Redgrave can penetrate?! 

Blindly booked the Double Day on the 16th May, from the reviews loloks as it may have been one of my better decisions.

Big fan of “box set’ days, only concern is that in the past have found the Young Vic seats extremely uncomfortable.

I thought they were fine/good. Btw, I saw it in preview and the second break in part 2 was only 5 mins.

Thought this would have transferred to the Playhouse along with Fun House, like The Jungle but went with ‘Tony Kushner’.

Shame give it 3 months and I be more than willing to do another 7 hour stint through this.

Lucky you. It made me *completely mental* and the constipation means I now have even-worse-than-in-pregnancy haemorrhoids.

Just read that myself. Yes, very glad I took a punt on it and booked a double-header when tickets went on sale. I'm going in a couple of weeks and I'm really looking forward to it.