The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide (Review)
Theater J stages Tony Kushner's extraordinary, intelligent epic.
Photo by C. Stanley Photography
“I’m thinking,” one character says at the end of the long play with the long title now in production at Theater J. You’ll be thinking at the end of this play, too — and all throughout its more than three-hour running time. The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures is a Tony Kushner play, after all. The gay playwright has all but cornered the market on long plays that reward thinking, even over-thinking, ever since his breakthrough masterpiece 20 years ago, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes — which, before it was a six-hour miniseries on HBO, was two plays, each three hours long.
However daunting The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide might sound, you’ll ultimately find it worth the effort. Director John Vreeke has assembled a fine cast of 11 actors who portray members of an Italian-American family and its assorted friends and lovers. Tom Wiggin portrays family patriarch, Gus, who in 2007 has summoned his three children to the family’s Brooklyn brownstone to announce his plans to “liquidate and vacate” — that is, sell the house and commit suicide. A retired longshoreman and labor organizer, Gus feels like he’s spinning his senescent wheels. He’s also not particularly proud of the marks he’s left on the world.
Most of the action takes place in the family’s parlor room and plays out like an Arthur Miller classic, exploring all manner of topics — philosophical, political, personal. But the opposing concepts of freedom and oppression predominate, and even Gus’s desire is portrayed in this light — he sees suicide as the only way to gain a sense of freedom, while his children naturally see it as an oppressive act that will cause great distress.
Wiggin commands the stage as Gus, getting to the heart of a contradictory kind of character — the learned everyman. Susan Rome puts up a good fight as his earnest bisexual daughter, Empty, who endeavors to “defeat death” by talking him out of his plans. Lisa Hodsoll plays Empty’s partner, Maeve, as less of a monster and more personable than the character otherwise might be in a different actor’s hands — while the opposite is true of Lou Liberatore. He plays Gus’s gay son Pill as a weaselly character who struggles to connect with anyone and seemingly disappoints everyone, including gay hustler Eli (Josh Adams), who falls for him. Speaking of struggling to connect, Michael Anthony Williams is tyrannical as Pill’s lover Paul, making it hard to see any redeeming virtue.
It might take a theatergoer a while to connect overall to The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide, which is split into three acts by two 10-minute intermissions — and into scenes by Jared Mezzocchi’s intriguing projected black-and-white cityscape images. The play’s first act is convoluted and slow-to-rise. But by the second act, a war of words and wills has broken out all over — at one point, there are four overlapping conversations — and you’ll be on the edge of your seat, enraptured by every well-timed volley.
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (
) runs to Dec. 21 at Washington, D.C.’s Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th St. NW. Tickets are $35 to $65. Call 202-518-9400 or visit washingtondcjcc.org.
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