Tom Stoppard’s overlong and self-indulgent The Invention of Love really rubs me up the wrong way at Hampstead Theatre
“What do I want?
Nothing which you’d call indecent”
There’s often a density to Tom Stoppard’s writing, a vast breadth to the references that he draws upon, that appears to be contagious – even the Hampstead Theatre’s blurb for The Invention of Love refers unironically to “stygian gloom” and cites Ruskin and Pater sans context. Politely, you might say ‘how erudite’; after three hours of unrelenting classics-heavy speechifying and conversation or both at the same time, you might question its place in a contemporary theatre.
With the always-interesting Blanche McIntyre directing and Simon Russell Beale returning to the London stage alongside a richly talented company, the credentials for this new production of Stoppard’s 1997 play are certainly there. As Oxbridge graduates both (McIntyre even read Classics too), you can see the appeal for them but as Stoppard loads up the academic allusions to uncompromising levels (in the first half in particular), it sacrifices wider interest.
The play is a slanted look at the life of scholar and poet AE Housman. Beginning at the end, Russell Beale plays him about to head to the afterlife but flashing back to the Oxford University of his youth where Matthew Tennyson plays a younger closeted version. He’s wrestling with both theoretical explorations of homosexuality in the classics through loaded scholarly debate and a more practical study through his unremitting crush on fellow student Moses Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes).
The second half with its focus more on the latter point is engagingly done, particularly in Older Housman’s chats with Dickie Beau’s Oscar Wilde about his repressed sexuality. Russell Beale brings such depth to the text where he can and Tennyson is movingly excellent with worlds of emotion tied up in every longing glance. It takes an unnecessarily long time to get there though and with little for audience members to get purchase onto without the extensive reading list from the programme.
McIntyre’s production brings in intelligently conceived design from Morgan Large and fascinating sound work and composition from Max Pappenheim. And striking moments pop out through across the company, Lloyd-Hughes’ Jackson is swaggeringly cocksure, Alan Williams’ Charon grumbingly amusing, Jonnie Broadbent inspirational in his chat. But for all the good work, taking three hours to say that being erudite ain’t actually all that feels like a massive piss-take from Stoppard. Not for me, at all.
