Canonizing Kushner

“Theater may not reach huge numbers of people,” he continued, his passion pouring out in a rush of words, “but it’s the one place where trickle-down actually applies. You can make something happen in the world with a play because the people who see theater are some of the most intellectually curious, sophisticated, progressive people in the country. When these people come see a play and it gets them thinking, it changes them, which in turn changes the way they behave, which changes the way they engage with politics and the rest of the world. It’s hard to say how much of an effect you have, but I think one can have an important effect.”

Many artists shun the media, preferring to let their work speak for itself. Tony Kushner is not one of them. He shares his opinion—whether in essays, op-ed pieces, book introductions, press interviews, or various functions at which he is asked to speak—with an energetic, almost impish glee. He clearly loves to perform, and he has an endearing, boyish charm that is infectious. When he speaks, words spill out of his mouth at an astonishing rate, and when he’s hurling along at full throttle it’s as if his tongue is racing to keep up with his mind, which is blazing along at a level of consciousness that makes you feel smarter just for listening. The man is a free-association machine who peppers his monologues with effortless references to everything from Goethe, Bertolt Brecht, Sigmund Freud, and Karl Marx to Ingmar Bergman, The Sopranos , and Homer Simpson. The more he talks the smarter he gets, and he doesn’t stop until he feels he’s sufficiently exhausted any given topic.

Logorrhea (literally, diarrhea of knowledge) is the medical term for people whose verbosity is so conspicuously fluid, but that word is usually used disparagingly to describe someone who is slightly nuts and whose prolixity masks a lack of substance. Kushner, on the other hand, is spectacularly sane, and the word torrents that cascade so spontaneously out of his mouth are often beautifully structured verbal explorations similar to the rants for which many of his characters are famous. The first hour of his play Homebody/Kabul , for instance, is a long, rambling monologue on the history of Afghanistan (and many other things) that must strike terror into the heart of any actor who takes it on. And yet the consensus is that it’s one of the most brilliant monologues in American theater history.

“One of the things I love most about Tony’s work is his wonderfully luxurious, exuberant language,” says Berkeley Repertory Theatre artistic director Tony Taccone, who originally commissioned Angels in America and co-directed its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. “He creates these wildly different, unique, and fantastical worlds that spring from these gorgeous words. It’s truly marvelous.”

Taccone will be directing “tiny Kushner,” the program of short plays appearing at the Guthrie, and says the key to understanding and appreciating Kushner’s genius is recognizing his love for ambivalence, paradox, metaphor, and humor. Kushner doesn’t just create characters who are conflicted; he sets them in contexts that give their thoughts and actions an almost cosmically grand significance.

“Tony believes that the world by its very nature is in primordial and absolute flux,” says Taccone. “Change is constant, and he wants to identify the ebb and flow of those changes—and not just personal change, but social and historical change as well. He’s essentially a political writer, so he’s not just interested in relationships, but also in how those relationships are reflected and refracted in the world at large. That he’s able to articulate all of those issues at once is impressive, but Tony’s work is also very funny. These aren’t rambling diatribes that don’t make any sense—Tony’s plays are an intense, high-level form of entertainment.”