Slavs: Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness by Tony Kushner

Slavs: Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness by Tony Kushner

A fantastical/political/historical exploration of life in the Soviet Union in the earliest dawn of Perestroika. In scenes ranging from the inner chambers of the Politburo to a secret chamber beneath Lenin's Tomb to a medical facility near a radioactive disposal site in Siberia, SLAVS considers the difficulty, the failure, and the abiding importance of Socialism and of ongoing efforts towards building collective societies and a more just world. Tony Kushner bears the curse of all artists unlucky enough to have captured the zeitgeist. They are expected to continue on their visionary path, explicating the world's mysteries in each new play. Or they are tempted to use the stage as a bully pulpit, indicting the cause of our malaise and dolling out prescriptions to sooth the pain. It is a mark of Kushner's sophistication that in his newest play he refuses to rest on his well-earned moral authority. A lesser writer would have followed ANGELS IN AMERICA with something smug and sweeping. As though Kushner feared such a fate, he instead has returned to where he started - a place of healthy confusion. A taut play results: Kushner's humor buoys his political anguish, his lyricism draws dry ideas into rhapsodies and elegies, his interest in character won't let even the most vaudevillian individual conform to type. -Marc Robinson, The Village Voice The heaven that Tony Kushner envisions in the epilogue of SLAVS , his bracing, rational 80-minute fantasia is a dark, gloomy place designed to look like a city after an earthquake ... he has created a rambunctiously funny, seriously moving stage piece that is part buffoonish burlesque and part tragic satire. From beginning to end, it's also shot through with the kind of irony virtually unknown in today's theater, movies and television, where sarcasm passes as wit. There were hints of this exaggerated style in his epic MILLENNIUM APPROACHES and PERESTROIKA, collectively known as ANGELS IN AMERICA ... Mr Kushner has emphasized that SLAVS Is not to be taken as the work of a historian. Rather, it's a work of a brilliant and restless imagination. Mr Kushner's words dazzle, sting and prompt belly laughs. -Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Tony Kushner's plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols's film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg's Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.
Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

S. Ansky, pseudonym for Shloyme Zanul Rappoport, was a Russian-born writer and folklorist. The Dybbuk, Ansky's only complete dramatic work, was written in 1914 and was first produced by the Vilna Troupe in 1920, two weeks after his death.

Joachim Neugroschel has translated 160 books from French, German, Italian, Russian and Yiddish, including works by Kafka, Chekov, Bataille, Sholem Aleichem, and Nobel laureates Thomas Mann, Elias Canetti and Albert Schweitzer. In 1996 he was made a chevalier in France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780881451245
ISBN 10	088145124X
Title	Slavs: Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness
Author	Tony Kushner
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Broadway Play Publishing Inc.,U.S.
Year published	1996-10-15
Number of pages	66
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.