Lots of disappointment at “The Inheritance,” the two-part, seven-hour, gay-themed play that opened Sunday night at the Barrymore. It surfed into New York from London on a wave of raves and Olivier Awards. But the reception here — at the box office and from the critics — has been mixed.
Budgeted at $9.5 million, Matthew Lopez’s play struggled in previews to sell tickets. Word of mouth was good for the first part. Not so for the second, which seemed to some theatergoers an overwritten episode of “The Young and the Restless and the Barefoot.” (The actors don’t wear shoes.)
You could tell the critics wanted to embrace it. It’s hip, literary (with a nod to E.M. Forster’s novel “Howards End”) and moving in its depiction of the scourge of AIDS. But reservations undercut the reviews. The Post’s Johnny Oleksinski: “The abundance of graphic sex-talk can grow cloying.” The Times’ Ben Brantley: “Its breadth doesn’t always translate into depth.” Naveen Kumar, on the gay Web site Towleroad: “For an endeavor so sweeping in scope, its findings are surprisingly narrow.”
A play requiring a seven-hour time commitment and an outlay of a few hundred bucks needed reviews proclaiming it as good as “Angels in America.” It didn’t get them, and the box-office wrap the day after opening was so disappointing, its producers didn’t mention it at a meeting with investors, production sources say. I’m told the take was below $100,000.
“The Inheritance” will almost certainly not earn back $9.5 million. The question is: Will it make it till June, and the Tonys? Probably. It has deep-pocketed producers, and its running costs aren’t exorbitant. It surely will receive plenty of nominations, but it’s no longer the favorite to win Best Play.
And it faces fierce competition from “The Lehman Trilogy,” the three-hour play about the Lehman Brothers that opens in March. In London, “The Inheritance” beat “The Lehman Trilogy” on every front at the Olivier Awards. It won best new play, best director (Stephen Daldry), best actor (Kyle Soller) and best lighting. That situation could be reversed at the Tonys. I can see “Lehman” director Sam Mendes beating Daldry, the sensational Simon Russell Beale taking Best Actor (co-stars Ben Miles and Adam Godley may be nominated as well), and the play itself picking up plenty of design awards.
Can “Lehman” win Best Play? I think so, though some voters aren’t quite sure who the playwright is. Stefano Massini wrote it in Italian, but Ben Power, a dramaturg at the National Theatre in London, adapted it into English. He also trimmed it, which is something Lopez should have done with “The Inheritance.” Voters may also rally around playwright Adam Rapp and his “The Sound Inside,” starring a heartbreaking Mary-Louise Parker. Catwalk model Jeremy O. Harris’ “Slave Play” will also be in the mix, as will Martin McDonagh’s gripping “Hangmen,” about the last executioner in England.
But if voters go for the totality of the theatrical experience, as they did with “Warhorse” in 2011, then “Lehman” wins in a walk.
Either way, “Lehman” is clobbering “The Inheritance” at the box office. The advance is said to be in the millions and ticking — enough to buy its cast some shoes.
Thomas Schumacher, the head of Disney’s theatrical empire, celebrated the third (third!) printing of his children’s book “How Does the Show Go On?” this week at Sardi’s. The book is a lushly illustrated introduction to the theater in all its backstage glory. A bevy of Disney’s leading ladies — Caissie Levy and Ryann Redmond (“Frozen”), Sierra Boggess (“The Little Mermaid”), Arielle Jacobs (“Aladdin”) — toasted the man who gave them jobs. “How Does the Show Go On?” comes with augmented reality technology, which smartphones can unlock to play behind-the-scenes videos only available with the book.
“Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning” airs weekdays on WOR Radio 710.