The Invention of Love is the latest play from Tom Stoppard - his recent works have included Arcadia, last on Broadway with Love's Robert Sean Leonard in 1995, Indian Ink and the Academy Award-winning film, "Shakespeare in Love." Jack O'Brien (right) just staged The Full Monty for Broadway and is now concentrating on Stoppard's Love.
The Invention of Love has as its central character the conservative, not to say dour, 19th century English poet and scholar A.E. Housman (1859-1936). 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. Housman is best known for his collection of poems titled "A Shropshire Lad." Through his melancholy, longing poetry—according to Invention of Love production notes—he expressed his lifelong unrequited passion for a fellow student at Oxford, Moses Jackson. Leonard and Richard Easton play Housman young and old, respectively.
