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WRESTLING WITH ANGELS: PLAYWRIGHT TONY KUSHNER
Written, Produced & Directed by: Freida Lee Mock.
Directors of Photography: Bestor Cram, Don Lenzer, Eddie Marritz, Chris Paul, & Terry Sanders.
Edited by: Anne Stein.
Music by Jeanine Tesori.
Released by: Balcony Releasing.
Country of Origin: USA. 98 min. Not Rated.

Director Freida Lee Mock takes on the daunting challenge of making a documentary about one of today’s foremost prodigious and probing minds. Fortunately, Mock is matched to the task. She presents a loving, intimate and well-rounded account of this Pulitzer Prize-winning artist, activist, and citizen of the world.

Appropriately divided into acts like a play, the camera accompanies Kushner through his regular routine, giving us a front-row seat to some of his works in progress, in performance (his musical Caroline, or Change), and at the numerous engagements where he is in great demand as an orator. Included are choice interviews with his colleagues, collaborators, and the irrepressible and incisively humorous Kushner. Mock also delves into the personal past and present of Kushner’s family history and his relationship with his partner, Mark Harris. Just as in Kushner and Harris’s decision to have a commitment ceremony, Mock knows not to shy away from but to confront head-on the socio-political marriage between Kushner’s life and his art, and his identity as a Jew, American, and gay man.

In one of the many poignant tributes to Kushner, artist Maurice Sendak speaks to the heart of who and what Kushner is, describing Kushner’s talent as being so vital, with a loyalty and a menschkeit* total and honest. The one odd omission is the lack of any insight into how Kushner practices his writing craft, depriving the audience the chance to know how he plies his trade. Although this oversight might lessen to a very slight degree the honor paid to Kushner, the end of the film captures one particular moment that does not let the audience forget why the film was made in the first place. While responding to the theme of hope that underscores much of his writing, Kushner emphasizes, “(it is in) the possibility to hope that action can change the course of things.” Max Rennix, actor & writer based in New York
October 4, 2006

* Menschkeit – a philosophy admired and respected because of its sense of ethics, fairness, and nobility.