The Inheritance - Previews

[clever2]

It’s true one can see an Ibsen play, respect and love it, and then spend the rest of the evening at a sex party. Nothing wrong with that.
 

I’m being sincere.

[clever2]

I truly am amazed by how lengthy and complex this conversation is. That we are all still discussing it does suggest the play has power. Be it positive or negative or somewhere in between, the play has power. And that should be acknowledged.

[SS3]

Did anyone find it distracting that the play made a point of letting us know Eric was Jewish, when it never became relevant in the play?

Jews have a long cultural history and community that Eric is part of and has 'inherited'. I viewed this as Matthew contrasting it with the questions he's raising about gays and if we have a shared past.

[NativeNYer2]

Kad, I think your frustration is misdirected.  I am not saying that you cannot be obsessed with sex and underwear and also care about great art, literature, and film.  But I am wondering if the playwright subconsciously (or consciously) chose to have the only character in the group who did not participate in that sequence also be the same character to have a transcendent experience and to have this passion for the arts.  Is it a coincidence?  Or is there a connection?  Eric also denies a sexual advance from someone to whom he is attracted.  Does such carnal control also free one up to love the arts and to have transcendental experiences?  Or can we get too lost in the pleasures of the body (and the pleasures of, apparently, gay underwear, even though I didn't know that existed) and can these fascinations lead to focusing on self-pleasure so much that we do not have space to care about other things?  I did not write these scenarios.  The playwright did.  Are these things coincidences or not?  Your trouble is with the playwright, not me.  If the playwright did not make these decisions consciously, then I must assume that he made them subconsciously.  I do not see these as coincidences in the writing.  I actually have a close personal friend who is quite celebrated in the Broadway community as of recently, and he is no stranger to being subsumed with sex and pleasures of the body, and he also deeply appreciates great literature.  I know this because I have had in depth conversations with him.  But I can see the idea that people who are subsumed with self-pleasure may focus on it too much to focus on anything else... almost as though they are addicted to the culture.  I can see this as a possibility.  Matthew Lopez's subconscience (or conscience) perhaps sees this as more than a possibility, or perhaps it does not.

Clever2, I agree with you.  The fact that the play is generating so much discussion is a testament to its richness.

SS3, you are making me think of something.  I suppose the play argues that young gay people today do not feel the connection to the gay past as much as they should, or that their lives would be richer if they paid debt to them.  In a sense, the same could be said of today's young Jews.  When I was growing up, when people would learn they were having a baby, they always always always always named the baby after someone from the past.  They honored someone from their family by naming them, and this felt like an emotional obligation.  Today, this practice, at least among my Jewish friends (and being Jewish myself, I have many) is practically abolished.  I will often hear the question asked "Who did you name the baby after?" and the response is often "No one.  We just wanted the name to be pretty."  The emotional obligation to honor one's dead ancestors is barely a thing anymore.  The decline in this tradition can also be said to be indicative of a diminished connection with the past among Jews.  

Ultimately, though, the fact still remains that Eric's Jewishess does not add to his character or to the events of the play.  I asked Soller why they bothered to make him Jewish if it had no dramatic effect, and he told me that there was initially more in the play about Eric's Jewishness but it ended up being cut from the play.  I just think they should have gone further to cut any mention of him being Jewish because I kept waiting for it have relevance, and it never came.   In Angels in America, when you learn that some of the characters are Mormon, that becomes painfully relevant.  Without knowing they are Mormon, it becomes an entirely different play.  If you learn a character's religion, it should mean something.  They may as well have said he was diabetic.  It would have had the same dramatic effect on the rest of the play: none.

[Kad]

NativeNYer2- My apologies, but your post did make it seem as though you were the one espousing that worldview, not Lopez. 

Eric's Jewishness seemed to me to exist as nothing more than a handwaved explanation for how he has his rent controlled apartment. 

[magictodo123]

I was somewhere and I believe some people who have insider knowledge were discussing the show near me; I believe they think the show wants to try to push through to awards season and then it might close up shop depending on the outcome there. 

[haterobics]

magictodo123 said: "I was somewhere and I believe some people who have insider knowledge were discussing the show near me; I believe they think the show wants to try to push through to awards season and then it might close up shop depending on the outcome there."

I think that is the gameplan for any financially struggling open run? Although it is a two step process: We got nominated? If yes, stay open through the awards. If not, announce closing. Then, the same process after the awards.

[Auggie27]

With the winter sale in place ($59/$39), I believe the producers know their only hope at remaining at the break even point is to pitch Part One as a standalone piece. Jan - March is a difficult sell and the weeknights for this show will be a challenge. I pulled a Sunday night for Part 2 the day before, and ended up in a center orchestra seat. When I saw part one at a recent Wed matinee, the entire rear mezz was empty. The advance sale must be negligible. Surviving to May/June seems a pipe dream, but who knows? If they can break even pushing Part One, they have a shot. A preponderance of the public will not invest 7 hours in this, and that explains the 5-3 ratio of One to Two. I wish they had a part two matinee, as did several people I spoke to Sunday night. But Is suspect they couldn't risk it.  Watch the box office for the second week of  January. 

[clever2]

All one has to do to see how advance sales are going is get on Telecharge and look at the seating charts from performance to performance. There’s no reason to speculate when you can easily investigate.

In other news, quite brave to extend a show with an average of 65% capacity an additional three months.