KUSHNER RETURNS TO BROADWAY

Mr. Kushner returns-
(story via AP) by Patrick Condon

With a sometimes bumpy Minneapolis test debut for his new family drama out of the way, playwright Tony Kushner is setting his sights on getting the play to Broadway by the end of the year.
"The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures" ended its run at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater last weekend, meeting mixed reviews from local critics and requiring what Kushner called "steel nerves on the part of everybody involved" as he wrote and re-wrote the play even after it opened in previews.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony-winning author of "Angels in America" said he's proud of the work and thrilled that the Guthrie gave him the opportunity chance to work out the new play on the stage. The Guthrie, praised by Kushner and others as a flagship regional theater, commissioned the new work and rolled out the red carpet by using it to anchor a three-month "Kushner Celebration."

"I don't think anybody involved has ever been through something coming together in quite this way," Kushner said. "The script was very much in process all the way through, to a degree that's new to me."

That may be why local critics complained the play had an incomplete quality, and suggested the Guthrie presented its audience with an unfinished work. But Kushner said it gave him the luxury to shape the play in real time in anticipation of a national debut — a rare chance for a playwright of his stature.

Kusher said nothing's been firmed up for a Broadway debut. But he said he's working with Scott Rudin, a heavyweight film and theater producer with five Tony Awards under his belt and a hand in numerous major Broadway productions in the last decade.
If he can't strike a deal for Broadway, Kushner said the play would likely debut off-Broadway at the Public Theater, with which he has a long association. "But I'd like to see it on Broadway," he said.
"The Intelligent Homosexual" tackled family relations, aging, homosexuality, religion and other weighty topics, and Kushner said he intended it to echo with similarities to the family dramas by some of his favorite playwrights including Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill.

Local theater critics were ambivalent about the result. Both daily newspapers had qualified praise, but the Star Tribune said it seemed "unfinished and uncertain of its purpose" and the St. Paul Pioneer press called it "mushy, melodramatic." The alternative weekly City Pages was more generous, pronouncing it "immensely entertaining."

Both daily papers also noted in stories that the Guthrie, on Kushner's behalf, asked national theater critics not to review the show. Kushner and Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling bristled at suggestions that Minnesota audiences were subjected to an unfinished play.


"I don't feel we asked anyone to sit through an unfinished or unready piece of work," Kushner said. "We used previews the way they were meant to be used."
But he also admitted that weak reviews from national critics could have been "crippling to me" as he continued to work on the play. "The trick is going to be figuring out the things that didn't work narratively," he said.
Dowling said the play met the nonprofit theater's box office goals. He said in all, about 85,000 people saw one of the plays or somehow participated in a packed schedule of Kushner-related programming.
The theater reported that "Intelligent Homosexual" played to 69 percent of its capacity, while the other Kushner Celebration productions did better: "Caroline, Or Change," which got strong local reviews, played to 83 percent of capacity, while a series of short Kushner plays reached 76 percent.
"For us it was extraordinary, to see how we can engage this community and how people got into the whole idea of immersing themselves in the work of a single playwright," said Dowling, who's said he considers Kushner one of if not the most important living playwright.

Kushner briefly became a fixture in Minneapolis, giving speeches and local interviews and even letting his face be plastered on billboards and bus ads. When the city's mayor proclaimed "Tony Kushner Day" in Minneapolis, the playwright joked it would force him into "eleven more years of therapy."

Kushner said anyone who saw "The Intelligent Homosexual" in Minneapolis and revisits it in New York will find it "absolutely recognizable. It'll also be very different. The whole play is there, but it's packed so tight right now. Only I know what's in there for sure."