The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures at The Guthrie Theater on 5/22/09
By: David de Young
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| Michael Cristofer (August Giuseppe Garibaldi Marcantonio [Gus]) and Ron Menzel (Vito Marcantonio) in the world premiere of THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Tony Kushner at the Guthrie Theater. Photo by Michal Daniel. |
As part of the Everything Kushner series at the Guthrie, The Intelligent Homosexual was one of three separate Kushner shows with curtains at 7:30 p.m. Friday night. (Caroline or Change is still on the Wurtele Thrust Stage and Tiny Kushner, a series of short plays, is playing in the Dowling Studio). The new play opened to a full house that included Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Dowling and Tony Kushner himself. Directed by Michael Greif, it stars Michael Cristofer as Gus, a retired longshoreman from Brooklyn, a third generation Communist who at 75 years old is feeling defeated by the 21st Century and has decided the only thing left that makes sense is to commit suicide.
The play is set in 2007 with Gus’s family coming together to try and dissuade him from suicide at his brownstone which he has put up for sale. The opening scene sets the hyper-contemporary tone for the play as a cell phone conversation between Gus’s son Pill (Stephen Spinella) and Pill’s prostitute lover Eli (Michael Esper) segues right out of the ringing cell phone cacophony of the Guthrie’s own recorded “turn off your phone” message. (One audience member’s phone still rang during the first act, and since cell phones were strapped to many of the actors, I actually expected one of them to answer it.) The Twin Cities’ audience’s ears surely perked up to hear that Pill had moved to Minneapolis and that our own fair city would serve as a remote reference point during much of the play. This provided fodder for several humorous local references. “Any good theater in Minneapolis?” Eli asks Pill in the very first line of the play.
As the action develops, at one level, we as an audience feel as if we’re peering through the window at a real and extremely dysfunctional family: Pill is married (his husband Paul is played by Michael Potts) and ultimately proposes a three way relationship that includes Eli. His lesbian sister, Empty (Linda Emond) is still sleeping with her ex-husband, Adam (Mark Benninghofen) while her new partner Maeve (Charity Jones) has been become pregnant by Pill’s brother Vinnie (Ron Menzel). It’s a complicated set up, and to help you sort it all out the Guthrie program includes a family tree to trace all the connections.
The cast also features Kathleen Chalfant as Gus’s sister, Bennie, a former nun who dispenses some of the show’s cynical and removed wisdom almost like a single member Greek chorus at times. The cast is rounded out by Sun Mee Chomet as Vinnie’s wife Sooze, Michael Potts as Pill’s husband Paul, and Michelle O’Neill as Shelle O’Neill (a matchup of names I am told occurred because Kushner was looking for an Irish sounding name, and actress O’Neill came equipped with one) as Gus’ friend.
Two central themes of Kushner’s new play are connectedness and belonging and how they work or do not work in 21st century America, but these are far from the only themes. Also tackled are issues surrounding Alzheimer’s, suicide, workers’ rights to own the fruit of their own labor, birth and death. The play careens around like an unrelenting parade for three and a half hours of theater that goes by quicker than just about any I’ve experienced.
A brilliant set designed by Mark Wendland (extravagant even by the Guthrie’s standards) lent itself to the play in such a way I can’t imagine this production working without it. Two floors of the Brooklyn brownstone were often visible at once as scenes played out on multiple floors, or inside and outside the building simultaneously. (Despite recent research showing that people can’t truly multi-task, Kushner seems to have faith that we actually can, or that we’ll at least be able to catch the important stuff.)
The expletive-filled mouths of most of the characters may shock some theater-goers. For me, the unrestrained language just added to the feeling I was looking through a window at real life. Kushner has gotten out of his own way and let things go where they want to go, much of the humor coming from shock value when you think to yourself “Please Tony, don’t go there” and the next thing you know, that’s exactly where he’s taken you. One example? Theorizing about maternity strap-ons, worked into a discussion of Maeve and Empty’s sex-life during Maeve’s pregnancy.
The play’s long title, a mash-up of George Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Mary Baker Eddie’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is a bit of a catch-all, but oddly enough describe the play quite well. Some dialogue is a welcome refresher on the central concepts of the Communist Manifesto, and three of eleven characters (Maeve, Paul & Bennie) have ties to theological studies in one form or another.
During the blackout at the end of the final act, “Wow”, and “Oh My God” were uttered aloud around me even as I thought them in my own head. In the final scene Kushner manages to tie the madness together and bring the rollercoaster ride to a graceful close. Surely I wasn’t the only theater-goer with teary eyes sitting in a kind of shocked sadness as I watched the curtain call.
This play is clearly not for everyone, but if you like to be challenged while you are entertained, this is theater right at the edge of your comfort zone and you should find it nothing short of exhilarating.
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism & Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures runs through June 28th. Tickets and more information at www.guthrietheater.org
Location Info:
The Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: Guthrie Theater
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