Tony Kushner has a favorite new play.
Heidi Schreck wrote it.
They have a lot to talk about.
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Sara Holdren:We might as well start big.
Im going to borrow from Krista Tippett: What gives you hope right now, and what frightens you?
It could be in a general sense, Lord knows, but lets make it specifically about theater.
What about the world of theater gives you hope right now, and what concerns you?
Tony Kushner:Well, I have it easy.
Heidi Schreck:You go first.
You know, I went back to see it three times and sent everybody I know to see it.
And every time I went back, I left feeling more hope about the survival of our democracy.
:Thank you for saying all that.
Weve talked about this before, but whenI actually saw you in the audience for the third time
T.K.
:We had this moment of, Oh.Oh my God
H.S.
:I mean, I started doing special parts of the show just for you.
:I thought I saw just a tiny flicker of concern in your face.
Like,This is getting a little creepy … H.S.
Hes going to see that Im an impostor![Laughs.]
I sawAngels in Americawhen I was 21, when I was in college.
And we watched [both parts] in one day.
:Jeff was in the most bizarre play of mine,Hydriotaphia.
:I saw that play!
I loved that play.
I really like medieval things.
:It was nuts.
Jeff played the soul of Sir Thomas Browne.
:Yeah, he was great at playing a soul.
Hes a special soul.
So we Rollerbladed up there, since it was the 90s.
:The fountain is the most beautiful thing.
Like my ballet teacher.
:Oh, Im very curious!
Weve eliminated moviegoing as part of that thing.
We dont see movies in groups anymore, and that is one of the most important functions of theater.
And no matter how deeply inculcated you are in that idea, you need the experience of the people.
And I remember thinking,Oh, the vote is coming, and genuinely not knowing what would happen.
:All three times I saw it, that was the vote.
:They kept it?
:All three times.
:People only vote to abolish 20 percent of the time.
We keep a little tally backstage.
And that was exciting for me.
I personally love it when people vote to abolish.
It makes my play feel so much more radical!
So dont you want to venture to control that in some way?
And I was like, The whole point of the play is that I dont control it.
Its a civic act.
We decide as a community how to move forward.
So I dont get to decide whether its more or less radical at the end.
:It mattered so much to me what this person who was selected was going to decide.
I really felt that I had a lot at stake.
Personally, I would have been devastated had they voted to abolish.
I think were going to try it in previews.
Were also just trying to find ways to make the debate even riskier.
How they do their hair, what they wear, everything.
You try as much as possible to share your real feelings about things and to share your real self.
I just dont believe theres a way to actually do it.
:Thats a problem with democracy.
:There are no magicians.
:And thats a really profound question that the play delivers you to.
I feel like its everything Ive been struggling with for years, personally and politically and as a writer.
Its evolution versus revolution.
And what Lincoln did was to create this substitute a pretty conscious secular substitute for theological principle.
And if you pick at that, you know, theres nothing there but this stack of paper.
:Oh, I love that.
Were not changing the set, but maybe thats where we can spend all that Broadway money!
And she came back and was like, Heres your dream-slash-nightmare.
And I was like, I …
I dont know, Rachel.
And she was like, This is what you described.
And I said, But dont you think its … kind of heavy-handed?
And she said, I think its reality.
And I said, Okay.
I was just overwhelmed when I saw all the faces of the men.
I dont think I realized that that was the fantasy version I had described to her, you know?
:Yes, I have a complicated relationship with them too.
And now I sometimes think of [the men] up there as allies.
Fellow victims of a violent culture.
:It feels like an ethos of a not very distant and yet somehow very distant past.
:Yes, it does.
I really love that phrase, a plausible occasion for hope.
Whether were talking aboutAngels in AmericaorConstitution,we keep coming back to this idea
H.S.
:A plausible occasion for hope!
Its sort of wonderfully not overstated.
Its my new subtitle.What the Constitution Means to Me: A Plausible Occasion for Hope.
Whereas now were surrounded by a sort of apocalyptic discourse.
So much canceling, so much malice and bitterness and despair
T.K.
:I dont think despair really comes about through a tough, clear-eyed encounter with reality.
I think despair is Trumps inaugural address, the American carnage speech.
Theres an active desire for annihilation.
Whereas, you know, theres so much thats really tragic in the stories that youre telling, Heidi.
H.S.:Yes.
Thats different than despair, right?
Thats looking as clearly as possible at the wound.
And I was like, What?
And I looked down.
And I was like, Yeah, I do, actually.
:If you had been Tennessee Williams, you wouldve had the foot amputated.
The way he dealt with having this monster hit withStreetcarwas to go and have major eye surgery.
H.S.:[Laughs.]
And one of the things for me that kills hope is denial, right?
This is maybe too cheesy, but I was telling Tony I was in his playThe Illusionin college.
I played the magician.
I had to wear a giant birdcage on my head.
:What a concept.
:But theres this line at the end, when the magicians talking to the actors father.
At times I think theres nothing else.
Sometimes before I go onstage, I actually have that line in my head.
Because sometimes Im just like,What am I doing?
Why am I going out there?But I am still capable of feeling great love.
Im lucky enough to have great love in my life.
