the perfectionist: an interview with playwright tony kushner

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Tony Kushner probably needs no introduction. On a muggy afternoon in June,
2008, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright sat down with a Contemplate editor in his
small, well-furnished office overlooking Manhattan’s Union Square. Kushner’s plays express
his politics, and his politics are firmly rooted in the Jewish progressive tradition, so it made
sense to begin the interview with Kushner’s Jewish upbringing in Louisiana. From there,
the conversation roamed between politics and theatre, Israel and the U.S., Brecht and Philip
Roth. A question about Judaism led to a definition so concise it would make Hillel proud.
Kushner also mused on whether age—he was about to turn 52—had tempered his radicalism.
Excerpts from the 90-minute interview follow.
Contemplate: There’s a way in which one becomes
a Jew-by-osmosis living in New York City. But you’re
a New York Jew by way of Louisiana, where you were
raised in a progressive, non-religious Jewish family.
Where did you absorb so much Jewishness?
Tony Kushner: Well, I obviously absorbed a certain
amount as a child. My parents were not religious
people; my mother had really nothing much more
than an emotional/sentimental attachment to
Judaism. I think that my sense of the importance of
being Jewish was sharpened by the fact that I grew up
as part of a very small minority within an entirely
Christian community. It would have been possibly a
different thing had I grown up on the Upper West
Side of Manhattan.
You seem to articulate your Jewishness in two
ways—through your activism, but also through a
deep, almost omnivorous interest in Jewish people,
history, and issues.
I’m not sure what to say, except…Jews are very inter-
esting. I mean, I don’t know how you justify it. I call
myself an agnostic—and I think that’s a pretty good
description of what I am. In terms of theology…I’m
probably kidding myself.
But it’s an interesting thing—there’s a level of
comfort, a sense of belonging, that is only touched on
in the company of other Jews. I’m speaking personally
now, but I think this is something that a lot of Jews
share. For secular Jews in the United States, especially,
there may be a need, a hunger, that you’re not even
particularly aware exists until you find yourself in the
company of a lot of other Jews.
That sounds almost Jungian. Do you believe in a
Jewish consciousness—or unconscious?
People carry history within themselves, so if you want
to call that a collective unconscious, you can do that;
it’s a little mystical to me, I think it’s got more
material sources. You’re the receiver of a history.
And you carry that within you, and transform it
within yourself.