{"id":1449,"date":"2017-01-17T11:58:58","date_gmt":"2017-01-17T11:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1449"},"modified":"2017-01-17T11:58:58","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T11:58:58","slug":"12-plays-of-xmas-11-the-illusion-by-tony-kushnercorneille","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2017\/01\/12-plays-of-xmas-11-the-illusion-by-tony-kushnercorneille.html","title":{"rendered":"12 Plays of Xmas: 11 The Illusion by Tony Kushner\/Corneille"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Are we all excited about Angels in America<\/em><\/a>? Yes we bloody are. It\u2019s coming to the National Theatre this spring with a dream cast and some of us have been slavering for months. Booking my seats last week, stuck in an over-subscribed online ticket queue, was a rollercoaster of fanboy emotions.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time to get in our pre-season Kushner training. I saw \u2013 loved<\/em> \u00ac\u2013 the sprawling, brawling The Intelligent Homosexual\u2019s Guide etc<\/em> <\/a>[iHO<\/em>]\u00a0in the autumn, and here\u2019s a toothsome pithivier of earlyish Kushner: his version of Corneille\u2019s mind-boggling 1636 comedy. Unlike the other plays in this series, I\u2019ve seen L\u2019Illusion comique <\/em>on stage, though in a different adaptation, by Ranjit Bolt<\/a>. Kushner\u2019s The Illusion<\/em><\/a> takes such liberties with the original \u2013 extra characters, scenes and speeches, \u2018here are virtually no lines directly translated from the French\u2019 \u2013 so it seems fair to treat it as a separate work. And it\u2019s one steeped in Kushner\u2019s delight in writing (oh, the writing<\/em> \u2013 plunge into the speech about a tear quoted at the end) and relish for the tricksy truths that theatre can tell.<\/p>\n

The overall arc is Corneille\u2019s, however, and it\u2019s a smack around the chops for anyone inclined to patronise the past. Before Pirandello and postmodernism, it\u2019s a metatheatrical whirl of a piece. A father long estranged from his errant son solicits a conjurer to show him scenes from the young man\u2019s subsequent life. They are compelling visions of romance and peril \u2013 but from the beginning there\u2019s something off about them. The father recognises his son, but the name is wrong, and keeps changing. What could possibly be going on?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Illusion at A Noise Within, Pasadena, 2012. Photo: Craig Schwartz<\/p><\/div>\n

Kushner\u2019s adaptation premiered in 1988, three years before the first part of Angels in America<\/em>. That two-play epic is as substantial a piece of writing as I\u2019ve ever encountered \u2013 but also has an irresistible theatrical juiciness, an adoration of the stage convention that anything placed before an audience is real and also not. Angels and Ethel Rosenberg; imaginary heroes and real-life monsters. They share a space with us and with each other, and are as compelling as they are confected.<\/p>\n

Alcandre, the magician and playwright manqu\u00e9 in The Illusion<\/em>, has a sense of this incongruity. \u2018I do love a twist, a succulent complication,\u2019 he says. \u2018I feel positively elated \u2013 you can never tell, when you start these things, how they\u2019ll go.\u2019 Succulent complication is also Kushner\u2019s method \u2013 knotting contradictions into characters. A closeted gay Mormon, a sexuality-denying gay-baiter, self-tormenting people who regret the choices they avidly pursue.<\/p>\n

A character is a confection, though we feel their substance. Theatre isn\u2019t just an empathy machine, but also a maker of realities more graspable than our own real world surrounds. Sitting in the dark, there\u2019s a distance that lets you see the contours of the world. Mired in our own confusions, it\u2019s hard to achieve the same clarity. Kushner\u2019s rigorous, elastic work stretches these paradoxes to their limits: even as the extended family in iHO<\/em> writhes and bellows, often all at once, we feel them and we think them. The Illusion\u2019s icing-sugar profundities point the way into Kushner\u2019s world. See you at Angels,<\/em> everyone.<\/p>\n

Sample stage direction<\/strong> \u2018A great red curtain falls. Priadmant rushes towards it. He tears down the curtain. There\u2019s nothing behind it.\u2019<\/em>
\nSample quote<\/strong> Alcandre, describing a tear: \u2018This, this jewel. This precious leaded crystal pendant. This diamond dolorosa, so hard fought for, so hard won, this food, my sustenance, for this infinitesimal seepage, for this atom of remorse, for this little globe, this microcosm in which loss, love, sorrow, consequence dwell in miniature, for this iota, this splintered particle of grief, for this I turn the gumstuck machinery, erect the rickety carpentry of my illusions. For this: to see your granite heart soften, just a bit.\u2019<\/p>\n

12 Plays of Xmas<\/strong><\/a>
\nI have, surprise, a lot of books. And I have, surprise, not read them all. So, 12 unfamiliar plays, 12 posts: welcome to 12 Plays of Xmas.<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we all excited about Angels in America? Yes we bloody are. It\u2019s coming to the National Theatre this spring with a dream cast and some of us have been slavering for months. Booking my seats last week, stuck in an over-subscribed online ticket queue, was a rollercoaster of fanboy emotions. So, it\u2019s time to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[402,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-12-plays-of-xmas","9":"tag-theatre","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1452,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions\/1452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}