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By Lauren Yarger
Three siblings, their mates and their aunt gather for a dysfunctional family gathering where trying to cope with the choices they all have made interfere with another decision they now must make: is it OK for their father to commit suicide?
Welcome to Tony Kushner’s newest play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, running off Broadway at the Public Theatre, co-produced in New York with Signature Theatre Company, which also presented Kushner’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning Angels in America and the currently running The Illusion for its 2010-2011 season.
The family gathering is called when longshoreman Gus Marcantonio (Michael Christofer), observing in himself symptoms of the Alzheimer’s that has run in his family, decides to end his life before the union organizer and long-time former Communist Party member loses control. In truth, the patriarch lets it slip from time to time that the real reason for his surrender may be a loss of faith that anything ever really changes, not a fear of memory loss.
A previous attempt to slit his wrists failed and caused his family a lot of anguish, especially youngest son V (Steven Pasquale), a contractor, who ended up having to remodel the blood-stained bathroom. And, oh, his father’s suicide attempt just happened to be on V’s birthday to boot.
So this time, Gus says he’ll abide by the consensus of his family on whether or not it’s OK for him to end his life. Each member gets a vote. Besides V, there is Gus’s daughter, Empty (Linda Emond), who is a labor attorney who has worked alongside her father in his union and Communist causes (her name derives from the initials of Maria Theresa). Then we have floundering older son Pill (Stephen Spinella), a high school English teacher who’s 30 year in to his graduate school dissertation, which shares its title with the play “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (in turn drawing its title form works by George Bernard Shaw and Mary Baker Eddy).
Finally, there is Gus’ sister, Clio (Brenda Wehle), a former nun who finds wisdom in Eddy’s Christian Scientist writings, who has come home to live in the family’s Brooklyn brownstone (Mark Wendland creates moving sets that quickly become the dining room, Eli’s sad room and Adam’s downstairs apartment).
Each is caught up in his or her own problems, which follow them to the gathering. Pill’s partner, Paul (K. Todd Freeman), is upset about Pill’s infidelities and claims of affection for Eli (Michael Esper), a prostitute he found on Craig’s List and on whom Pill has spent $30,000 for sexual favors – a sum he borrowed from Empty.
That financial arrangement has angered Empty’s partner, Maeve (Danielle Skraastad), who wanted their nest egg to be used for the baby she is carrying (V provided the sperm). That paternal donation causes friction with V’s wife, Sooze (Hettienne Park) and Empty’s ex, Adam (a very funny Matti Servitto), who happens to live in the home’s basement where he is available for occasional sexual encounters with the ex-wife he still loves.
Suddenly, concerns about suicide are clouded by the announcement that Adam has brokered a deal to sell the brownstone for $4.5 million so Gus can provide for his children before he goes, and before the bottom falls out of the real estate market.
Before you start thanking God that you’re family isn’t as dysfunctional as you thought it was compared to this group, there’s more. Stopping by with a do-it-yourself suicide kit, complete with detailed instructions for its use, is Shelle (Molly Pierce), the widow of a one of Gus’s union brothers who got the shaft in a deal that eliminated jobs while providing a guaranteed income for Gus. Shelle helped her husband take his life, and now she’s passing on some tips.
Kushner is a good storyteller (even if his plots tend toward far-fetched) and creates interesting characters, but he tries our patience with undecipherable cacophonies of conversations taking place simultaneously, supposed theologian Paul’s screaming, preachy, metaphor-heavy monologues and the three-hour-and 40-minute run time. The second act, which could be cut be cut almost entirely, does end with a terrific didn’t-see-it-coming plot twist that changes the minds of anyone plotting an exit during the second intermission, though.
In the midst of everything, Gus does manage to have a heart-to-heart with each of his kids and these moments are the highlights of the play itself. Michael Greif’s direction is tight and he gets stellar performances out of most of the actors. Spinella balances sarcasm as a coping mechanism with sheer desperation as Pill can’t give up Paul or Eli. Emond is fascinating as the woman who’s supposed to be in control, but whose life anything but and Wehle is subtly brilliant as the family anchor, trying not to be too horrified by all that’s going on around her.
The play runs through June 12 at The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. For tickets call 212.244.7529 or visit http://signaturetheatre.org/.
Christians might also like to know:
Language
Lord’s name taken in vain
Sexual dialogue
Scantily clad actress
Homosexual activity
Nudity
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