Guthrie Theater

by Tony Kushner
directed by Michael Greif

The title of Tony Kushner's new play is inspired by two 19th-century thinkers and their works -- George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The play looks at the life of a 20th-century thinker, retired longshoreman Gus Marcantonio (Michael Cristofer), who's feeling confused and defeated by the 21st century. In summer 2007, he invites his sister and his three children (who in turn bring along spouses, ex-spouses, lovers and more) to a most unusual family reunion in their Brooklyn brownstone.

With humor and passion, the play examines the importance of connectedness and belonging - to a family, a community, a group, an ideology, a marriage - and what happens when those connections are lost.

This production contains strong language, sexual situations, smoking and nudity.

Media Sponsor: Minnesota Public Radio 

Run time

3 hours 28 minutes with two intermissions

Resources

Play Guide created by the Guthrie Theater

Everyone is talking about The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide... Read what the critics have to say about this world premiere.

~ Tim Gihring, Minnesota Monthly

The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide is a success - sprawling, yearning, at times emotionally violent, it is also packed with a level of complexity, sophistication and understanding that distinguishes it as a potentially important new American work.
~ Quinton Skinner, Variety

The lines sound great in the actors' mouths, their performances are excellent and Greif dances this show across the Guthrie stage with humor and muscular strokes. It is a very American work - a dense rush of ideas.
~ Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

In so many ways, The Intelligent Homosexual is just an old-fashioned piece of dramatic entertainment waiting to be discovered by a new audience - one that has never seen anything like it from Tony Kushner, ever before.
~ Tad Simon, Mpls. St. Paul Magazine

Cast

Artistic Staff