The Invention of Love

The Lowdown

Tom Stoppard wrote a play in which a dead Victorian poet steps off Charon's boat and spends the next two and a half hours arguing with his younger self about Latin verbs and the man he never worked up the nerve to tell. Somehow it is funny. Somehow it also wrecks you.

The Invention of Love is one of Stoppard's least-revived big swings, and The MAP is staging it in a 60-seat room on the third floor of a West 36th Street building. That is the whole pitch: A.E. Housman, played by Obie winner David Greenspan, at close enough range that you can watch him think. Zachary Elkind directs a company of nine, including Sam Bolen, Annabel Capper, Leland Fowler and Spencer Lutvak.

Seventeen performances, September 17 through October 3, and general admission means the good seats go to whoever turns up early. Tickets run $40 to $80 on a pay-what-you-can-ish sliding scale. If you have ever wanted to watch a great actor do a great part in a room roughly the size of a generous living room, this is your window.