The Case of Kushner

Abstract

Images of playwrights as idealistic social crusaders are among the most durable ghosts when a writer commits to creating for the stage in the United States, and this is the kiln, to borrow August Wilson’s language in his manifesto “The Ground on Which I Stand,” in which Tony Kushner was fired. That Kushner would claim Brecht as an inspiration and a conscious model adds complexity to the formal mixture of his plays, which struggle successfully to incorporate radical and popular techniques in a way that make his characters’ intensely political dialogue both meaningful and theatrically viable (in other words, playable, a factor not to be dis- counted when dealing with a performing art, especially in a topical mode). Kushner’s influences are various—Ibsen, Shaw, Brecht, Odets, Williams, and Miller all offer useful frameworks—with Shaw, Brecht, and Miller standing out particularly because of the manner in which Kushner chooses to engage the archival image of playwright as activist, not only in his own public performances as celebrated author-of-conscience but also in the way he conceives of and crafts his plays.