Caroline, or Change (or keep it simple)

This past Friday night we jumped back in to the pool of Tony Kushner at the Guthrie. While the buzz around town last year about Kushner-fest was all about the world premiere of his new play, the buzz around town for the past month has been about his other show – Caroline, or Change. It’s a musical, or more accurately, an operetta, as there are no truly spoken words. I wasn’t expecting that (the operetta part) but it gives the whole show an imaginative and playful quality, almost as if it’s all in the head and mind of Caroline. Or, actually, possibly, Noah. (That could be argued, I guess.) It’s a quality in sharp contrast to the harsh realism of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide....

One of the most striking things about this piece is that after watching approximately nine hours of Kushner’s work over the past few weeks, this was an incredibly simplistic and straightforward plot. There weren’t multiple story lines and overly complicated relationships.

There was a black maid working in a Jewish home in the South at the time of the Kennedy assassination. And both families (the maid’s and her employer’s) were struggling with their own griefs and challenges and family dynamics.

But just like much of his other work this show has imaginitive elements like the fact that the moon, washing machine and dryer all sing! (They were awesome.) And, even more so, as he’s wont to do with his people, these are deeply rooted characters.

After the show, the more I thought about it, the more we discussed it all, the more I realized and the more I loved this show. This was a very moving piece of theatre with some truly shining performances. There’s overwhelming desire and despair, with a glimmer of hope peeking around the corners….I cared about all of them.

That’s something, by the way, that didn’t happen with that new play.

On a side note, even though the big G’s been open in its new space for….two years now? Somehow this was the first show I’ve seen on the thrust stage. Of course, it’s virtually identical to the original theater, with few exceptions. Nonetheless it was kind of eery to walk out to a completely different lobby – and a lobby that has no comparisons.

The Intelligent Homosexual may be smarter than me

A few other thoughts on this new work by Kushner occurred to me.

Tony Kushner’s new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… has a truly serious subject at its core. Suicide. Or rather, attempted. Still, it’s a tough subject. Particularly for anyone who has known someone to have tried such a thing. Or worse, succeeded.

This subject also contains a problem with the script, which is that as an audience member I’m not sure why this person would’ve attempted it. I mean, I can conjur up a reason, or even two perhaps. But they don’t feel compelling enough. They weren’t presented sharply enough to justify—if that’s the right word—such a thing. 

As someone who has had a family member commit suicide, I of course thought of that person, that circumstance and those relationships, all while watching the show at certain scenes. I don’t know if my personal knowledge actually colored the show for me one way or another, outside of one particular moment that struck me strongly. I think there’s just as good a chance I’d have had that same reaction had I never known someone to kill himself.

I digress. My point is that this was one of the issues we talked about on the way home that night. I walked away from the show thinking about how I really wanted the character who had attempted suicide to show me, give me, hint at a reason as to why—it occurs to me that so often with suicide, we don’t know the real reason why. We can assume. We can guess. We can deduce. But finding out why is something we may likely never truly know, and our only option is settle on that reason within our own selves in order to move on. 

Perhaps that truthism tells me that just because I wanted something from a character in this new play doesn’t mean I should get it. In fact, had I gotten it, it would’ve been a very different play and likely less interesting. When everything is handed to you in theatre, and nothing is left to mystery or wonder, it’s might no longer be theatre. Or it might no longer be good theatre. It might be a sermon or and academic lecture or a documentary or even journalism. But it may pull itself out of the art.

Yeah, I guess that Tony Kushner guy knows how to write a few things.

The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide

It’s only been about 10 hours since curtain call so my mind hasn’t quite yet figured out what Tony Kushner’s new play is really all about, but I know it deserves some thought and discussion. I’m not sure how to wrap my head around it all.

The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide To Capitalism And Socialism With A Key To The Scriptures is a long play. Yes, longer than its title. It’s also a work in progress, as made evident by the uneven production we saw last night and a script that repeats itself and stagnates as it traverses a muddy patch. There were moments when I felt like I was watching actors about half-way through a rehearsal process. None of it ever completely fell apart or became unpresentable, although there were actually a few time when I thought actors were wondering whose line it was. Those moments were followed by someone flicking a switch and the whole scene coming in to focus.

There’s one such scene that really stuck out to me. An aunt and niece are having a conversation in the attic. The aunt sits on the floor, the niece is pacing, the scene goes along fine, and then….the niece stops where she is, kneeling on the floor at this point, and the whole thing becomes…paced…and less nuanced, mined, explored. Suddenly it feels like good actors who are off book and still working out the ways of the scene. No one moves from their place. No one acts with her whole body. And even though they’re discussing a tragic thing that will likely happen the next day, revealing something horrible—it all feels a bit emotionally detached. This must be the newer material. Perhaps some of the stuff that actors were holding pages in their hands for previews.

Then suddenly, it all comes to life again, clips along, emotionally and purposefully charged.

There are a few brilliant scenes where the entire family, and I mean all 8 or 9 people on stage at once, are fighting. I thought this sounded perfectly normal—it’s how my family fights. There were 2 or 3 or 4 arguments happening at once, all talking over each other. But after about 5 or 6 or 7 or…minutes, it all starts to be a bit much. (This needs some shaping, Mr. Playwright and Mr. Director. I mean, it’s effective but only if the audience’s attention is drawn to the right thing at the right moment, to make it effective. And only if this technique isn’t overused.)

Being mired down in the mud is what this play does at times. Later there’s a long, repetitive scene between the father and daughter…it’s well done, but it really goes nowhere, doesn’t teach us anything new, doesn’t move the story along, doesn’t reveal anything…..However, it does bring us to one of the best and most riveting moments and lines that the play offers. For me, it was one of those moments where I realized I just audibly gasped in my response to the beauty and truth and honesty expressed.

Then I immediately thought: “Wow, that whole long drawn out scene just to get to that.” and pondered if it was worth it. I decided it may have been, but I think there’s a shorter path there that would cause less audience squirming.

This deserves more thought. The play and my experience of it. I almost want to see it again. I can’t possibly regurgitate and process it all at once.

It’s epic in its scope, and excruciating in its ideological and philosophical theorization and expression.

Yes, that too.