What a Queer Thing to Say - Playwright Tony Kushner

98 minutes with American Playwright Tony Kushner

(Vancouver, BC) The 19th annual Vancouver Queer Film & Video Festival opened last Thursday with The Bubble, a party at Celebrities, and a few rumoured makeout sessions.

However, besides all that and never-you-mind, last night I attended the screening of Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner, the 2006 documentary by Freida Lee Mock. The documentary follows Kushner as he revisits his past in Lake Charles, Louisiana, works on creating contemporary theatre pieces (the musical Caroline, Homebody/Kabul - a piece about the Taliban and Afghanistan, written prior to September 11 but opened December 2001, and Brundibar), and as he fights and advocates for civil society, economic justice and compassion in our relationships with each other (during the 2004 presidential election he works at a polling station in Florida, he speaks at rallys, he writes theatre).

Kushner explores his relationship with his father and mother and being gay (like the character in Angels in America, Tony calls his mother from a payphone and announced to her that he was gay - she cried for six months), we see how bits and pieces of his past are woven into elements of his plays and work; we see just how important his family is to him and how stable are his relationships.

The blurb in the VQF&V guide says, "throughout [Wrestling with Angels], we observe Kushner fighting for humanism, rationaility, and compassion. Informative, thought-provoking, Kushner is one of America's leading intellectuals and a brave outspoken gay man with a vision - this is a must-see."

A couple of memorable lines from the film: (Kushner is adorably funny throughout but especially during his commencement speech to Vassar grads). Click here to read it in full. But I especially loved these lines:

Thank you for inviting me, but I worry about you. Haven't you been reading the papers? ...why couldn't you have gone for something a bit more techno-savvy, someone from the movies, Spiderman for instance, why someone from the theater for God's sake, do you want everyone to think you're gay?

And when Larry Kramer, sitting on a panel with Kushner, says to a young man in the audience: "You're the invisible generation. You don't stand for anything, you don't fight for anything that I can see." It's a great line but it can actually be said of any of the last five generations in North America.

Look for Wrestling with Angels when it comes out in the video store or when it plays on CBC's The Passionate Eye (as it inevitably will).

The Vancouver Queer Film & Video Festival continues all week until this Sunday. There's still lots to see.

xoxo

MVL