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Tiny Kushner at The Guthrie Theater on 5/20/09

Jim Lichtscheidl, J.C. Cutler, Kate Eifrig and Valeri Mudek in “Terminating or Sonnet LXXV or ‘Lass Meine Schmerzen Nicht Verloren Sein’ or Ambivalence,” part of Tiny Kushner, an evening of short plays by Tony Kushner at the Guthrie Theater. Photo by Michal Daniel.

"Tiny Kushner" (an evening of short plays by Tony Kushner, at the Guthrie's Dowling Studio, May 16-June 13) is bit of a misnomer as there is nothing diminutive about this work. The settings – the moon, a country estate in paradise, a 20 minute play with two dozen separate scenes – all exhibit Kushner's trademark inventiveness. Ditto the characters: angels, a deceased psychotherapist, Countess Geraldine of Albania, an overweight tax protestor in an Indiana prison. Intellectual expansiveness combined with raw passion, overlaid with comic fervor, meshing together to create a playground for actors (and, therefore, for audiences). Vintage Kushner.

The production is what we've come to expect up at the Dowling: stripped down, with heavy use of projection (nicely done by Alexander Nichols), with the emphasis where it should be, on the four excellent actors, Jim Lichtscheidl, Valeri Mudek, Kate Eifrig and J.C. Cutler. Tony Taccone directs, and he has the good sense to coordinate the work of the cast and designers and then get out of the way.

The first piece, an encounter between Countess Geraldine (Kate Eifrig) and the dreamily eccentric American musician Lucia Pamela (Valeri Mudek) is a moony romp, ending in a wonderfully silly song-and-dance. It sets us up nicely for the second play, a knockout, in which Hendrick (J.C. Cutler in an outstanding turn), suffering from a "thought disorder" confronts his ex-psychiatrist Esther (Eifrig) and demands to sleep with her. What might have been a straight forward naturalism is given vivid theatricality through the simple device of putting the patient and the doctor's lyrically calm lovers (Jim Lichtscheidl and Mudek) at their shoulders. It's marvelous stuff, a fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining investigation of sexuality, mental illness, the nature of love.

The third play stumbles somewhat. A "teleplay" with several dozen settings and as many characters (all played by Lichtscheidl), the story, about the efforts of a large group of New York City employees to avoid taxes (by claiming 98 exemptions), is predictable and overlong. Still, the actor is a marvel and the piece is great fun. The fourth and shortest play concerns a hay fever stricken psychotherapist (Cutler again) in paradise who analyzes, five times a week, Richard Nixon (who just wants to be called "M"). Quite enjoyable.

This brings us to the fifth and final play, a genuine stunner. In "Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy" Laura Bush (Eifrig) reads Dostoyevsky to a polite group of deceased Iraqi children, all the while guarded by a smilingly nasty angel (Mudek). Bush prefaces her reading with a gorgeously disjointed Kushnerian riff, on her husband "Bushy", Jesus, the Devil and Dick Cheney, the nature of evil, the constant presence of death, the nature of innocence. Eifrig plays her role with brittle savagery and the her descent from perfumed GOP sweetness into gut-wrenching emotion is perfect. It sends us out of the theater still struggling to catch our breath.

To sound perhaps a crass note, it's worth mentioning that these short plays are indeed short. The famously long-winded Kushner gives us five plays in a disciplined two hours and twenty minutes.

Perfection? No. Some motifs are over-used – do we really need two plays about psychoanalysts? – and much of the material seems stuck in the Bush years. But there is more than enough theatrical richness here to keep us happy.

Highly recommended.

Location Info: The Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: Guthrie Theater

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