The Inheritance Is an Epic That Deserves the Title

We may as well begin with the obvious: With two parts, each over three hours long, three 15-minute intermissions, and one five-minute pause, The Inheritance is a theatrical endurance test.

It is, however, one this reviewer would gladly take again.

In defiance of the American attention span, Round House Theatre and director Tom Story have staged Matthew López’s juggernaut, which rivals a Victorian novel in its scope, complex plot, and space for big ideas. The comparison to a novel is not an idle one, for López loosely based The Inheritance on E.M. Forster’s 1910 Howards End. It is a heavy seven hours; program materials caution the use of homophobic slurs, depictions of sexual violence, and suicide, among other triggers. Yet there are many moments of levity—including one character’s social