➤ THE INHERITANCE, from p.30
does it feel bringing the show ow to
Broadway?
ANDREW BURNAP: It defi nitely
feels like we’ve brought it home,
with all the joy and excitement t and
anxiety associated with that word.
The whole time we were doing ng it
in London, we felt it was destined
tined
to be here. All the references that
move the action are about New
York. Stephen once joked that at the
London run was essentially a $2
million workshop for Broadway.
ay.
JOHN BENJAMIN HICKEY:
The fi rst time I read the script I
thought, “Oh my God — this is
in many ways an old-fashioned
Broadway dramatic
comedy.” It’s crazy to call it
that but that’s part of Matthew’s
KEY:
ript is
great gift, he is so
witty and expansive. The show
is so generous and accessible to an
audience.
KENNERLEY: Andrew, years
ago you starred in another Matthew
Lopez play, “The Legend of
Georgia McBride” in Los Angeles.
BURNAP: Yes, that’s how I met
Matthew. Sometime after, I vividly
remember getting an email from
my agent about working on Matthew’s
new play, “The Inheritance,”
slating me for the Adam/ Leo role. I
was champing at the bit to work on
another play and thought it sounded
great. But when I mentioned it
to Matthew, he said I was way too
old for that part. And that was it,
end of conversation. I was shocked.
Months went by, and then I was
asked to do a workshop playing
one of the young men, which was
amazing.
For a second workshop, I was
supposed to reprise that role, but
Matthew called me the night before
saying the actors he was pursuing
for the part of Toby were not available
and asked me to do him a favor
and play Toby for the week. But
he also warned, “Ultimately you
will not play the part in the production.”
Lucky for me, that ended
up not being the case.
HICKEY: I remember I was
about to head to Calgary to do a TV
show when I got a call that Stephen
Daldry wanted me for “The Inheritance.”
By chance I was watching
“The Crown” — Stephen was one
Kyle Soller and John Benjamin Hickey in “The Inheritance.”
of the directors — and I was so
obsessed with it I said yes before
I even read the script. I didn’t realize
it was nearly seven hours long.
I was so hungry to work with a visionary
director like Stephen.
KENNERLEY: Andrew, could
you talk about Toby Darling and
what makes him tick?
BURNAP: Many things. What
I love so much about Toby is his
appetite for life to the nth degree.
That makes him so attractive, he’s
sort of like a magnet. On the surface
he’s the life of the party, the
loudest person in the room. As
someone who is often the opposite
of that, I fi nd such people fascinating.
I always wanted to be like
that naturally. Toby comes at new
things in a bombastic way, without
hesitation, and I admire that.
It creates some hilarious, beautiful
moments and also some truly terrifying
moments.
HICKEY: When I fi rst read the
script, Toby registered as a very
tragic character. But the way Andrew
plays him, he is not a victim
— he absolutely loves the entire experience
of life. There is great darkness,
but Andrew has a wonderful
fl air for infusing levity. It makes
the heartbreak of Toby Darling all
the more devastating.
KENNERLEY: John, what about
Henry Wilcox?
HICKEY: What makes Henry
tick is money. He is of a generation
that was decimated by the
plague and that calamity forces
him into the closet. He is emotionally
unavailable. When he meets
a younger group of gay men who
have a strong sense of community,
he begins to come alive. He never
had that in his life because he was
so paralyzed by what happened to
his peers in the early 1980s. He
also happens to be a conservative
gay Republican. You don’t see that
too often onstage.
KENNERLEY: The play focuses
on the special kinship among gay
men across generations. Why does
this connection matter?
BURNAP: With every new generation
there’s an acceptance of the
way things currently are without a
profound understanding of what’s
come before. You cannot possibly
understand where you are, the
troubles that a generation faces,
without knowing what the previous
generation fought for.
HICKEY: As gay people, as
Jews, as African Americans, you
MARC BRENNER
need to know where you’ve come in
order to create your own space in
the world. In the gay community,
there’s this astonishing divide between
generations. Today it’s about
PrEP and being able to fuck, often
without a condom, and to live without
the fear of death. The generation
just before them lived through
a holocaust. How do you build that
bridge? It’s not about what debt do
you owe, it’s acknowledging where
you came from to be who you are.
KENNERLEY: The play is not so
much a literal modern-day update
of “Howards End,” but rather meditation
on its themes and characters.
What are the key themes?
BURNAP: I think they’re legacy,
love, and loss. The three L’s.
HICKEY: It’s about taking care of
each other and learning about who
we are by looking at where we have
been. This play could be titled “The
Book That Saved My Life.” Matthew
has stated that this novel was his
salvation. It’s not just about fi nding
connection as a gay man with
the people who came before you.
It’s about words and language and
art as lifesaving. I think that’s the
beating heart of the play.
➤ THE INHERITANCE, continued on p.35
October 10 - October 23, 2 34 019 | GayCityNews.com
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