A play you'll get to see only once - The Voysey Inheritance

You will probably get only one chance to see "The Voysey Inheritance," and it's worth seeing. Yes, it's a curiosity, rarely performed, but it's being staged now at the Second Story Theater (Warren, R.I.), in a really good, intimate production (Ed Shea, dir.). Voysey was written ca 1905 by Harley Granville-Barker (I had some of his Shakespeare books), one of those old British theater names that's always coming up, but I'm guessing none of his plays but this have endured. He's pretty much a 2nd-rate Ibsen, at least on the evidence of Voysey, interested in social issues, finance, how money and class status can wreck families - typical Edwardian "problem plays," in which an earnest young hero faces an ethical dilemma that tears him apart. Why is it second-rate? Compared with Ibsen, much too talky (and this version is an adaptation and emendation by Mamet, of all people) and much less mysterious. We see the problem almost immediately, as young Voysey confronts his dad, a financier who's been stealing from his clients to live in luxury and keep the firm afloat. Obvious and creepy prescient evocation of Madoff et al. Young Voysey, on his father's death, must decide whether he should come clean or keep the scam going in the vain hope of building back enough capital to pay back all of the original investors. Good dilemma, and good to watch him wrestle with it. A few very powerful confrontations between Edward (?) Voysey and some of the investors, and several of the other family members, who can't face the truth. Play doesn't really resolve in an effective way, however, and ultimately we don't care too much about this pathetic family (possibly because there are so many Voyseys it's hard to get a clear image of any one of them). Worth seeing - once - though the play is probably destined to fade once more into oblivion.