Zeitgeist's 'Tiny Kushner' Reveals Huge Imagination

So, you’ve seen Angels in America and Munich you think you have a handle on what Tony Kushner’s all about.

Not so fast.

Yes, Kushner’s a serious guy. There’s no denying his political agenda, and the outspoken nature with which he’s addressed the conflicts between Israel and Palestine has earned him some enemies. But lurking somewhere within his complex mind is a sharp sense of humor – as warped and surreal as one could possibly hope for.

The Zeitgeist Stage Company is celebrating Kushner’s comic underbelly this fall with the East Coast premiere of Tiny Kushner, a collection of five lesser-known short plays that opened earlier this month and will continue running through October 22.  In a nutshell, Zeitgeist Founder and Producing Artistic director David Miller describes the set of plays as, “…much shorter than Angels in America and a lot funnier!”

“Three of the short plays are Kushner in a playful, some might say whimsical, mood; two of them taking place in the afterlife. These pieces started out as obituaries for the New York Times Magazine’s annual ‘The Lives They Lived’ year-end issue,” Miller explained.

Kushner poses his existentially-minded questions with a high degree of post-modernism, juxtaposing the interplay of characters real and imagined, living and dead… it’s a reality-bending tactic that keeps the audience on its toes with just a touch of absurdity.

“Perhaps the major thread running through the five pieces is Kushner's theatrical imagination, wit and wordplay,” Miller said. “Four of the pieces feature actual people, both historical—Nixon’s therapist—and living—Laura Bush—while the fifth piece is based on a Shakespeare sonnet and heavily influenced by Freud and Jung.  The shows slide effortlessly between naturalism and surrealism with scenes in the afterlife, as well as featuring deceased yet active participants in the enfolding drama as seen through Kushner's lens on life.”

“’Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy’ features Laura Bush reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov to the ghosts of dead Iraqi schoolchildren who's teacher is an angel,” he continued.

“What can you say after that?”

Go see it.

Tiny Kushner, presented by the Zeitgeist Stage Company at the BCA’s Black Box Theatre through October 22, Directed by David Miller. Wednesday & Thursday at 7:30, Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 4 & 8 PM and Sunday at 4PM.