The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Spending three and a half hours watching a new Tony Kushner play was enervating, provocative, and left me feeling like a little bit of an idiot. There's something about watching the work of someone who is clearly brilliant that inspires me to learn and know more but also makes me feel a little bad about some of my...less thoughtful entertainment options. You don't want to leave The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures and want to pop in the headphones for the new Britney album is all I'm saying. You DO want to go home and do some reading on the labor history of the United States. Which I did! And THEN I listened to some Britney...I couldn't help myself!

Regardless, let me try to quickly explain several hours of dense, character heavy show. Gus is an elderly father of three who has long had close ties with the Communist party in America. Now 72, he is preparing to kill himself, but before he does so wants the approval of his three children (because he's a twisted fuck--more later)--Pill, a middle aged gay man who can't stop cheating on his partner with a hustler; Empty, a lesbian whose partner is expecting their first child perhaps against Empty's real wishes; and V, the least academic of the three children, the one straight one, and the only child who keeps particularly close to Gus these days. Setting things in motion, more or less, is Clio, Gus's ex-nun sister who requests a unanimous vote to either give Gus the blessing to kill himself or to force him not to.

To get all literary on you for a second, if Angels in America is Kushner's The Corrections, iHo is his Freedom--still expansive and brilliant but less forgiving of its characters incredibly deep flaws. I always wondered why one particular character in Angels seemed to bear the brunt of Kushner's ire, earning the least happy ending in that particular play when I felt he deserved better. In iHo (note: I didn't come up with the nickname), no one gets an especially happy ending, and frankly, none of them really earns it. These are selfish people. Complicated, yes. Believable as well. Ultimately, though, they grow less and less likeable throughout the show, inciting pity more than caring. That's not a complaint. When after three hours I realized that I deeply hated a character I had loved at the beginning but still felt bad for him, I was mostly impressed by Kushner's willingness to take the audience to such dark places, but also still held deeply in the thrall of the play's incredible thoughtfulness. Because while I might not like these people, I was still invested in them. It's a hugely tricky balance--free of sentimentality and easy choices. It doesn't make it an easy show to watch, but it does make it fascinating.

But dwelling on suicide and the more distressing aspects of the play makes this sound more somber than it is. And the narrative is shot through with quite a bit of humor. Secondary characters like Empty's partner Maeve (perfectly played by Danielle Skraastad) and V's wife Sooze are wonderfully funny. Aunt Clio as well has hysterical moments though hers are balanced with others of sheer pathos by the incomparable Kathleen Chalfant who delivers a performance that is hugely quiet yet leaves a resounding impression. Not a single movement is wasted. Not a moment is missed. She's wonderful. Not everyone is loathsome. I quite enjoyed Yale-educated hustler Eli who Michael Esper plays as terribly sweet and almost heroically lost. And in a single scene, Molly Price plays Shelle (the less revealed about her, the better) and brings a crushing humanity and bareness of emotion that nearly splits the play wide open.

Most thrilling for me was seeing Stephen Spinella who created the role of Prior in Angels in America create a new Kushner role. As oldest son Pill, he's a devastating mess. His father notes that he is the child most likely (and willing and fated) to "break things." I didn't like him, and I didn't understand why his partner would stay with him, but pieces of him, I felt I understood, deeply and uncomfortably. That contrast between what I felt and what I knew--how I reacted to characters vs. how I understood them--that's what was ultimately so wonderful and eye-opening about the show. It lacks the humanity and sheer overwhelming power of Angels in America, but when you've created one of the most substantial masterpieces of contemporary theater, I think it's fair to say you're still prett great when you don't quite equal your earlier work. This is at once darker, more restrained, and less accessible than Angels, so it's less enjoyable, but damned if it isn't still pretty amazing.