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An Off-Broadway review of The MAP Theater’s production of “The Invention of Love” By Tom Stoppard at TheaterLab

By Antonio

I still see myself as a student at heart, and when I go to see a Stoppard play, I want to be prepared. I have been in love with his plays forever and have so enjoyed productions of Leopoldstadt, The Coast of Utopia, Travesties, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I want to be caffeinated so I can absorb every word and fully experience the world he creates. Walking into TheaterLab’s white box theater, I was immediately taken by how the space, designed by Bridget Lindsay, resembled a lovely cloud, with a small boat floating in the middle. Even with the beautiful soft lighting by Paige Seber, the white walls and white floors created a celestial feeling that made me eager to go on this ride.

Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love” is an epic piece of theater. In the original New York Production, Lincoln Center famously published an extensive, deep-dive companion guide to the production to brush up on our knowledge of romantic poetry and ancient Greek and Latin verse. I find the world Stoppard creates to be a combination of a Tony Kushner play with magical realism, within a Tennessee Williams memory play featuring a George Bernard Shaw play with big ideas and social satire. It imagines the death of the poet and scholar, A.E. Housman, as he journeys to Hades on the River Styx, reflecting on his earlier days at Oxford in the 19th Century. He sees his life choices and his society more clearly, like Emily in “Our Town” returning from the grave.

The MAP Theater’s ambitious production at TheaterLab’s intimate theater is grounded by David Greenspan’s portrayal of the elder A.E. Housman. He serves the play well, handling the academia with grace and ease while keeping us focused on the heart of the man whose life was transformed by “The love that dare not speak its name“⁽²⁾. Greenspan finds such power in the quiet moments of the elder A.E.H., allowing the current of his memories to carry him to a place of peace. For him, Hell is a place of healing and forgiveness.

The River Styx also transforms into the Thames, where young A.E.H. and his friends, Moses Jackson and Alfred Pollard, row leisurely while discussing their education at Oxford in 1877. Yaron Lotan, as the younger A.E.H., wonderfully embodies the hunger to succeed in academia and the depth of longing for his classmate, Jackson. Jackson, played by Jose Espinosa, is beautifully carefree while embracing his athletic abilities and love of science. Jackson becomes the sun in young A.E.H.’s world, and we can see there is no escaping his gravitational pull. The trio is rounded out by a charming performance by Daniel Liu as Pollard. He acts as a witness to this unrequited love and as a guide to living in this repressed society. This bubble at Oxford delights in the freedom of youth and indulges in the privilege of time to reflect on the great writers and philosophers in history. The trio creates a safe purgatory between the wild Aestheticism movement championing “art for art’s sake” and the scholars trying to remove any homoerotic reference from Greek text.

Regarding this society, we are in the repressed Victorian Era where the government delights in prosecuting love between two men. The Oxford professors and members of Parliament representing this tyrannical society are dutifully played by Sam Bolen, Leland Fowler, Abrar Haque, and Spencer Lutvak. However, I was confused by Zachary Elkin’s direction of this part of the story. Crafted with such energy and movement, I did not feel the contrast between the older men of society and the young men of Oxford. It needs a bit more “stiff upper lip” and “keep calm and carry on.” We minimize the sense of danger that gay men were losing everything because of whom they loved.

We are reminded of the high stakes of this era when Oscar Wilde, the most celebrated of the Aesthetes and an Oxford graduate who was also sentenced to two years of hard labor for gross indecency, appears in A.E. Housman’s journey. The contrast would have been all the more shocking and disruptive if the men of this society had been sufficiently differentiated. Wilde is played with wit and elegance by Sam Bolen. I was taken by Abrar Haque’s portrayal of characters who represented the ever-changing view of homosexuality in this culture. First, as Walter Pater, an intellectual representing the English Aesthetic movement, who brought an emotional openness and passion to this very rigid society. And also as the sensitive, wise Chamberlain who directly confronted Housman about his unrequited love for his college friend, Jackson, with care and delicacy.

I did appreciate Elkin’s overall construction of the play. He is creative in how he uses the space, and in the way he investigates each aspect of these characters and this world with a fresh lens. I am thankful that Elkin and The MAP Theater are creating challenging theater that speaks powerfully to the society we live in today. With governmental power stripping away our human rights and limiting our freedom to the “pursuit of happiness,” it is invigorating to be reminded that theatre can not only be entertaining but also empowering. This production reveals the human cost of oppression and how a person’s soul remains unfree if they are not free to love. A.E. Housman’s story taught me that surviving is not enough.

Ultimately, in The MAP Theater’s production of The Invention of Love, Greenspan’s A.E. Housman was my touchstone, helping me see and feel the world around him. Although his character confines himself to a life without love, I could see the desire circulating through Greenspan like it was blood. In the moment he is sharing a poem Housman translated to his students, Greenspan understands the assignment and allows the emotion to finally crack through the surface and release the pain of knowing he will never be able to share all the love inside of him. Housman instructed his brother to destroy his more explicitly romantic poems upon his death, securing his reputation as a poet and a scholar for all of history. Thankfully, his brother did not fulfill his wishes, and this incredible story is brought back to life each night in the theater.

1. Title Quote: ”When I Was One-and-Twenty” By A. E. Housman
2. “Two Loves” by Lord Alfred Douglas.