Off-B'way Review: The Invention of Love

David Greenspan and Annabel Capper
in The Invention of Love.
Credit: Paul Lutvak

Tom Stoppard’s dense literary masterpiece The Invention of Love receives a thoughtful, moving production at the tiny space at Theaterlab, highlighted by luminous performances by eight-time Obie winner David Greenspan as the poet-scholar A.E. Housman, Yaron Lotan as his younger self, and an insightful ensemble cast. The play is a challenging three-hour examination of Housman’s life as a brilliant student of Latin and Greek at Oxford followed by his career as a writer and professor, and his unrequited, gay passion for classmate Moses Jackson. Stoppard also traces attitudes towards homosexuality in British society in the same period (the 1880s-90s) as the government passes anti-sodomy laws and Oscar Wilde rises and falls as a symbol of aesthetic art and then decadence. The dazzling Stoppard frames the narrative with the just-deceased Housman's crossing into the underworld on the river Styx guided by the grumpy mythical ferryman Charon. Figures from the poet’s past appear and debate each other on the beauty of classical literature, male love, and who created the first love poem (hence the title).

Stoppard had been criticized for writing heady intellectual theatrical head-scratchers (to some), such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, and Jumpers—wordy plays that mined heady academic and historical themes—while failing to create emotionally-motivated characters. He finally broke through with The Real Thing in 1984, balancing witty wordplay with a heartbreaking love story between a playwright and an actress. Here he manages to perform a similar balancing act, illuminating Housman’s passion for the works of antiquity while delineating his forbidden love and the society that forces him to repress it. 

I’ve seen both the 1997 London production staged by Richard Eyre in the intimate Cottesloe Theater at the National and Jack O’Brien’s Broadway version at the Lyceum in 2001. Director

Sam Bolen and David Greenspan in
The Invention of Love.
Credit: Paul Lutvak

Zachary Lindsay’s small-scale staging is just as moving and elegant. Lindsay works wonders in the confined Theaterlab space, smoothly maneuvering a relatively large cast in a narrow stage with two rows of audience members on either side. The erudite dialogue is proficiently delivered and the largely intellectual action never drags. Bridget Lindsay's all-white set consists of an open space with the only scenery being the sailboat headed into the afterlife. There is sufficient room for cast members to move in and out of the boat, playing across Housman’s mental landscape.

Yaron Lotan and David Greenspan in
The Invention of Love.
Credit: Paul Lutvak

Greenspan feelingly conveys the elder Housman’s intellectual fieriness and repressed passion for male amour. He makes it clear that the poet is pouring his sexual longings into his academic pursuits. (He does miss the harsh taskmaster element during his scenes as an elderly don demonstrating tough love and discipline to his Oxford students including a sole female. Richard Easton had this sharpness in the Broadway edition.) Lotan infuses the younger Housman with the same yearnings only more intensely. Jose Espinosa makes for an empathetic, virile Moses Jackson. Annabel Capper is spiky and sarcastic as the curmudgeonly Charon and sympathetic as Hausman’s understanding sister. Sam Bolen captures the bubbling charisma and tragic self-pity of an underworld version of Oscar Wilde. Daniel Liu, Spencer Lutvak, Abrar Haque, and Leland Fowler bring depth to multiple roles.

This production must close relatively soon at Theaterlab, but hopefully another venue will be found for this worthy exploration of the love that dare not speak its name.

Sept. 20—Oct. 3. The Map at Theaterlab, 357 W. 36th St., NYC. Running time: 3 hours including intermission. ovationtix.com.