[News] Palestinians in America: An Intelligent Socialist's Guide to Tony Kushner

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Palestinians in America: An Intelligent Socialist's Guide to Tony 
Kushner, with a Key to the UN Declaration of Human Rights

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/day230511.html

by Susie Day

(Scene: an elevator, downstage right.  Stuck inside are ROY COHN and 
ETHEL ROSENBERG, characters in Tony Kushner's landmark play, 
<http://www.amazon.com/Angels-America-Part-One-Millennium/dp/1559360615/>Angels 
in America.  McCarthyite lawyer, ROY prosecuted Julius and Ethel 
Rosenberg, who were accused of spying for the USSR and executed in 
1953.  ETHEL now paces impatiently, pushing elevator buttons.  Above 
the stage, captions from recent New York Times headlines wink on and 
off didactically:)

<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/nyregion/cuny-blocks-honor-for-tony-kushner.html>"CUNY 
Blocks Honor for Tony Kushner," 
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E1DF1039F934A35756C0A9679D8B63>"Kushner, 
a Probing Dramatist of Intellectual Scope and Empathy," 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/nyregion/in-reversal-cuny-votes-to-honor-tony-kushner.html>"In 
Reversal, City University Trustees Approve Honorary Degree for Tony Kushner"

ETHEL: So Tony, you want to tell us why you're writing this corny 
elevator skit?  You thought maybe, "Ethel Rosenberg and Roy Cohn, 
trapped -- how amusing"?  This is a fakakta idea, Tony.

(Lights, upstage left, where Tony Kushner is at his desk, his back to us.)

ROY: Let the boy alone, Ethel.  Don't you see he's got 
conflicts?  You go back and help Julius assemble tractors in the 
dustbin of history.

ETHEL: Conflicts, Tony?  You want I should advise you on the 
conflicts you probably got about that fancy new degree they're giving 
you at the City University of New York?  The one you almost didn't 
get because Mr. 
<http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/05/06/new-york-times-piles-on-kushners-critic/>Jeffrey 
S. Wiesenfeld of the board pointed out you criticized Israel?  (Tony 
crumples a page, tosses it over his shoulder.)

ROY: Shut up, Ethel.  It's good to stop Tony from dumping on Israel, 
so he can keep getting awards.  That's great for me -- I'm a bigger 
guy in Hell since they showed 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIYzWJzO3vI>reruns of that Angels 
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIYzWJzO3vI>play of his on HBO.

ETHEL: Such nice goyishe actors they got to play us, Roy.  But we 
must ask: Why did Tony criticize Israel?  Tony is a good boy.  Tony 
does not exploit the masses.  He criticized because he saw the 
Palestinians denied their rights and in pain.  So Tony gets another 
degree, but inside he knows there are dialectically historical 
conditions that must be analyzed.

ROY: Thank you, Ethel, for validating my work in sending you to the 
electric chair.  You were much less repulsive when you stole secrets 
of the A-bomb.  Tony, I'm guessing you put me here to talk sense.  So 
don't listen to this pinko puke.  You got a good life -- awards, 
honorary degrees.  The people love Tony Kushner, "dramatist of empathy"!

ETHEL: Which is why Tony, as a feeling person, said that what was 
done to the Palestinian people when Israel was created was "ethnic 
cleansing."  This is where Tony's analysis must continue --

ROY: Tony made a little mistake about the Palestinians.  There 
weren't any.  He assumed the native riffraff around in 1948 had 
feelings.  Typical liberal moral-equivalence fallacy.

ETHEL: But this Mr. Wiesenfeld says Tony's an "extremist."  He says 
his mother would have called Tony a "Nazi collaborator."  (Tony snaps 
a pencil in two.)  This is enough to alienate Tony from his means of 
production, Roy.  (Tony puts his head in his hands.)

ROY: (Pointing to Tony) Now, look what you did.  Christ, Ethel, NEVER 
remind Tony about those guys who call you a Nazi if you disagree with 
them.  They can be scary.

ETHEL: Yeah.  Like you were, when you called people reds in the 1950s.

ROY: Tony, if you're going to force me to deal with this Bolshevik 
broad, I demand you write me with a cigar and some 
booze.  (Pause.  ROY reaches into his coat pocket and fishes out a 
lit cigar and a glass of bourbon.)  Thanks.

ETHEL: Speaking of ethnic cleansing, Tony, did you read in the papers 
<http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/17/a_new_non_violent_resistance_movement>what 
happened when those Palestinian protestors tried to remember the 
founding of Israel?  How many Palestinians you think could be writing 
award-winning plays if they weren't being shot by the IDF?

ROY: Tony, relax.  It's all good.  Remember how your liberal 
supporters came through for you?  Then you tell your detractors 
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/54643560/Letter-to-CUNY-Trustees-05-04-11>you 
always believed in Israel's right to exist -- Fantastic!  And, in 
case anyone notices you're on the board of 
<http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/>Jewish Voice for Peace, you say 
<http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/10/exclusive_playwright_tony_kushner_speaks_out>you're 
against the boycott -- Nice save!  It's like a built-in loyalty oath: 
"I am not now, nor have I ever been, a critic of Israel."

ETHEL: So Palestinians are supposed to stop suffering until Tony 
Kushner gets his honorary degree?  All through this media mishegas, 
nobody talks about Palestinians --

ROY: 
Wrong! 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/nyregion/opponent-of-honor-for-tony-kushner-criticizes-palestinians.html>Wiesenfeld 
tells Jim Dwyer of the 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/nyregion/opponent-of-honor-for-tony-kushner-criticizes-palestinians.html>New 
York Times that Palestinians "worship death for their children" and 
"are not human."  So the liberals, in order to get the award back for 
Tony, have to act like Palestine doesn't exist -- which ain't hard, 
'cause it don't.  After all, the whole point of the campaign, is to 
defend Tony, not to help Palestinians, right?

ETHEL: You're a sick man, Roy.

ROY: No sicker than anybody else about this thing, Ethel.  So 
Wiesenfeld gets props from the conservatives; Tony gets props from 
the liberals, and Israel gets props from everybody.  It's a 
win-win-win situation!

ETHEL: Not for the Palestinians.  Tony, you write about them!  Put, 
for instance, a Palestinian in this script.  You call yourself a 
socialist?  You stand up, Mr. Socialist Writer!

ROY: World's a stage, Ethel.  People love to play "commie," put on 
the t-shirts.  Don't mean anybody's a goddamn radical about 
anything.  It's all show biz.

(Tony stands up, kicks over a wastebasket.  Ethel crosses to ROY and 
pours the bourbon over his head.  ROY chokes Ethel.  Suddenly, the 
stage shakes, and an ANGEL, played by KARL MARX, crashes through the 
backdrop and hovers over the stage.  He speaks with the voice of a 
bored elevator operator.)

ANGEL MARX: Much as we'd all like this play to end happily, its 
material conditions do not permit divine intervention.  So everybody 
out!  Third floor: consumer goods, fetishized commodities, lingerie, 
light bulbs, bulldozers, hummus, hammers, sickles, yarmulkes, 
kafiyahs, flotillas, manifestoes, sheepskin. . .

(Actors playing ROY AND ETHEL shrug, step out of the elevator, and 
head back to the dressing room.  Tony sighs, turns off his computer, 
and wanders off.  Lights out.)


----------
Susie Day is Assistant Editor of <http://monthlyreview.org/>Monthly Review.




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