The Intelligent Homosexual
Filed in: Tony Kushner
Tony Kushner’s new play, “The Intelligent Homosexual" is an interesting contradiction between the mind and the body…
In new play, Kushner back on gay turf of 'Angels'
When Tony Kushner agreed to premiere a new play at the Guthrie Theater, the artistic director at the Minneapolis theater wanted to know what it would be called.
Kushner, who hadn't yet decided what to write about, responded with a mouthful of a title that had been knocking around in his head for more than a decade: "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures."
"Joe Dowling needed a title, and I figured well, I can make this play about absolutely anything and somehow or another, that title will carry it," Kushner said sipping a late afternoon cappuccino during a break from a hectic rehearsal schedule for the new play.
The new play is about "sexuality, and the housing market, and religion, and Marxism, and stuff like that," Kushner said. "It's a very complicated text, so I don't know how to explain it beyond that."
A new work from the Pulitzer and Tony-winning dramatist behind "Angels in America" is an event in American theater and a coup for the Guthrie. Long a leader in America's regional theater scene, the Guthrie moved to expensive, sprawling new digs along the Mississippi River in 2006, and its leaders were looking for the right moment to turn over its three stages and ample public spaces to celebrating the work of a single dramatist.
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Dowling said Kushner was his first choice as "the pre-eminent dramatist of our time."
Kushner copped the wordy title from a book he found among his late grandmother's things after she died in the early 1990s: "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism," written in 1928 by the playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw.
It served as a nice jumping-off point for a new play that's about people losing faith in the beliefs and personal relationships that once anchored their lives — themes Kushner said resonate more personally as he's gotten older.
"This is a play about how you proceed when all the old theories have failed," said Kathleen Chalfant, one of the stars of "The Intelligent Homosexual" and an "Angels in America" veteran.
As for links between "The Intelligent Homosexual" and "Angels in America," Kushner said they share some themes but that the new play is more intimate and less filled with "liberational energy." It's shorter, too, running just a little more than three hours.
"This is a much more middle-aged play," said Kushner. "I think because of things that are happening in my own life — an aging father, aging friends and my own aging body — it seemed like it was the right moment for this."
So about that title. "There is something kind of ridiculous about it," he said. But in the term "Intelligent Homosexual" he sensed an interesting contradiction between the mind and the body.
"Everybody has trouble thinking their way through sex and thinking about sex and the way the body expresses itself and gets and gives pleasure," Kushner said.
"The relationship of intelligence to pleasure and life, which is not an easy relationship, is something I was interested in exploring."
Excerpted from an article by PATRICK CONDON
Associated Press Writer
May 14, 2009
In new play, Kushner back on gay turf of 'Angels'
Kushner, who hadn't yet decided what to write about, responded with a mouthful of a title that had been knocking around in his head for more than a decade: "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures."
"Joe Dowling needed a title, and I figured well, I can make this play about absolutely anything and somehow or another, that title will carry it," Kushner said sipping a late afternoon cappuccino during a break from a hectic rehearsal schedule for the new play.
The new play is about "sexuality, and the housing market, and religion, and Marxism, and stuff like that," Kushner said. "It's a very complicated text, so I don't know how to explain it beyond that."
A new work from the Pulitzer and Tony-winning dramatist behind "Angels in America" is an event in American theater and a coup for the Guthrie. Long a leader in America's regional theater scene, the Guthrie moved to expensive, sprawling new digs along the Mississippi River in 2006, and its leaders were looking for the right moment to turn over its three stages and ample public spaces to celebrating the work of a single dramatist.
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Dowling said Kushner was his first choice as "the pre-eminent dramatist of our time."
Kushner copped the wordy title from a book he found among his late grandmother's things after she died in the early 1990s: "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism," written in 1928 by the playwright and socialist George Bernard Shaw.
It served as a nice jumping-off point for a new play that's about people losing faith in the beliefs and personal relationships that once anchored their lives — themes Kushner said resonate more personally as he's gotten older.
"This is a play about how you proceed when all the old theories have failed," said Kathleen Chalfant, one of the stars of "The Intelligent Homosexual" and an "Angels in America" veteran.
As for links between "The Intelligent Homosexual" and "Angels in America," Kushner said they share some themes but that the new play is more intimate and less filled with "liberational energy." It's shorter, too, running just a little more than three hours.
"This is a much more middle-aged play," said Kushner. "I think because of things that are happening in my own life — an aging father, aging friends and my own aging body — it seemed like it was the right moment for this."
So about that title. "There is something kind of ridiculous about it," he said. But in the term "Intelligent Homosexual" he sensed an interesting contradiction between the mind and the body.
"Everybody has trouble thinking their way through sex and thinking about sex and the way the body expresses itself and gets and gives pleasure," Kushner said.
"The relationship of intelligence to pleasure and life, which is not an easy relationship, is something I was interested in exploring."
Excerpted from an article by PATRICK CONDON
Associated Press Writer
May 14, 2009
