'The Inheritance', a great gay story

The gay community (and also the drug addicts) was the main victim of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s. Tony Kushner portrayed the hypocrisy and society's rejection of AIDS sufferers in the magnificent Angels in America, of which Josep Maria Flotats made a splendid version at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (1996) which earned him the rejection of the Pujol couple.

Kushner's New York is also the New York of the American Matthew López in The inheritancebut forty years later, when homosexuality seems to have overcome much of the discrimination. Curiously, López's work, winner of the most important awards in London and New York, has two parts, like Kushner's (Flotats only mounted the first) and a long duration, which in the case of The inheritance It runs for over seven hours with intermissions included.

Seven hours, two parts and six acts in a play that begins with ten young people who want to write but don't know how to start (the great challenge of the blank page). Fortunately, EM Forster, the author of the novels The Last Supper, appears before them. Howards End and Maurice to guide them through a story that is the same one that is represented. A play with five protagonists and a heart that basically contributes to the narration in a verbal polyphony, as well as incorporating quite secondary roles. The cursed hero is the young playwright Toby Darling (Carlos Cuevas), marked by an unhappy childhood, partner of the good-natured Eric Glass (excellent Albert Salazar) and friend of the pusillanimous but supportive Walter Poole (Carles Martínez, superb in the monologue in which he tells who he is), who shares, a republican, selfish and contributor to Trump's campaign, and Leo (impressive Marc Soler) a low-class chaperone who will have to be helped.

Beyond the stories of love and heartbreak, the emotional stews that fill, with repetitions included, a large part of the play, there are very didactic and reflective scenes that without being the most interesting are the most important; scenes in which it is raised whether there is a regression in the collective gay feeling. The film talks about the past of the gay movement's struggle and how to preserve its achievements (one of its legacies), and the threat (now a reality) of what could come with a Trump presidency (he is not mentioned) is glimpsed, and above all, the solidarity of the group towards its members, which will be very necessary after the sheriff's latest decrees.

In a functional and fairly neutral space (Lluc Castells) to house the different scenarios of the story, Josep Maria Mestres gives a lesson in directing actors and above all in tempo, rhythms and precision that, thanks to the humour that comes with the drama, make the long duration of the story more enjoyable.