We returned to the Round House for Part 2 of The Inheritance a week after viewing Part 1. As the play opens, E. M. Forster (Robert Sella), as narrator and commentor, is absent from the stage. Although the cast does its best to fill in as a Greek chorus, it isn’t quite the same.
But! He reappears in a dream to deliver a stunning monolog, one among several declaimed by different characters. They tend to slow down the headlong pace of this installment, if only by a little. In one outstanding performance (among many), Jordi Bertran Ramirez plays two characters who bear a remarkable resemblance to each other. At one point, he inhabits both simultaneously. It is breathtaking.
The story continues to follow the lives of Eric, Toby, and their friends and lovers, from a wild interlude on Fire Island (downright athletic depictions of drug-fueled parties) to the long-delayed occupation of the country house willed to Eric but deviously withheld from him by his future husband.
Time loops in on itself as the house, previously a refuge for AIDS victims during the last century, becomes the healing destination for the current generation of wounded souls. Nancy Robinette delivers one of those bravura monologs as Margaret, the house’s caretaker and living memory. She breaks our hearts as she describes her son’s death.
The play concludes on a sweet, almost sentimental note. With the unhappy exception of one character’s willful self-destruction, the seven-hour juggernaut we witnessed delivered a satisfying denouement.
The Inheritance, Parts One and Two in repertory at Round House Theatre through November 2.