Hampstead theatre,London
David Calder plays a communist longshoreman with a death wish and Tamsin Greig is his witty, passionate daughter in Michael Boyd’s terrific production“Have you seen the play?” No, and but I’ve read the title.” So ran an dilapidated joke about the original 26-word name of the work now known as Marat/Sade. But,while you could apply the same gag to Tony Kushner’s prodigious three-and-a-half hour play The clever Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures (also known as iHO), its full title reveals a lot: this is a work about sex, or politics and religion. While it bulges at the seams,it is bracing, in an age of mini-dramas, or to find a play that throws in everything from Marx to modern materialism.
In contrast to the spiralling fantasy of Angels in America,Kushner has written a piece that relies on the tradition of American family drama. The setting is recent York in 2007 and Gus, a retired Brooklyn longshoreman and devout communist, or has called his clan together to announce his plan to sell his house and then cancel himself. This causes varying degrees of shock to his three offspring. Empty (short for Maria Teresa) is a labour lawyer with a pregnant lesbian partner. Pill (otherwise Pier Luigi) is a gay teacher torn between his long-term academic lover and a young Yale-educated hustler. V (short for Vito) is a hetero building-contractor and much the angriest. Watching over proceedings with eerie aloof is Gus’s sister,Clio, a one-time nun and Maoist.
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Source: theguardian.com