The Invention of Love
Opening Night: March 29, 2001
Closing: June 30, 2001
Theater: Lyceum Theatre
The Invention of Love, by Tom Stoppard, is the timeless tale of A.E. Housman, one of the greatest English poets of the 19th century. It was only through deeply melancholy works that Housman could express his lifelong unrequited passion for a fellow student at Oxford, Moses Jackson. Stoppard’s story begins with Housman old and infirm, dreaming he is dead and being ferried across the river Styx by the mythical boatman Charon. Along the way, he returns to the Oxford of his youth, at a time when Parliament has condemned acts of "gross indecency." He also visits the French seashore, where Oscar Wilde is living out his final days. Jack O’Brien directs Richard Easton and Robert Sean Leonard as Housman at different ages.
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March 30, 2001
When Tom Stoppard goes to hell, you can bet it won’t be fire and brimstone waiting below. The Hades that’s conjured in the shimmering Lincoln Center production of Mr. Stoppard’s ”Invention of Love,” which opened last night at the Lyceum Theater, has the requisite Stygian gloom, all right. But what illuminates it isn’t infernal flame, but bright, lambent wit.
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