Before Tony Kushner won the Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards for “Angels in America,” his two-part epic about New Yorkers living through the early years of the AIDS epidemic, he wrote another play that very well could have been titled “The Devil in Germany.” That earlier work, “A Bright Room Called Day,” follows a group of artistic, politically engaged friends in Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power in 1932-33. First presented at a 1985 workshop and premiered in California in 1987, the play has garnered new interest in the Trump era.
Blank Theatre, a non-Equity company that has mostly produced musicals since its founding in 2017, takes a big swing with this heady political drama, directed by Danny Kapinos. The resulting production proves that the young company also has serious dramatic chops, drawing out the humanity of Kushner’s characters even when the text is dominated by fierce polemical debates.
The play begins with a New Year’s gathering in the apartment of Agnes Eggling (Katherine Schwartz), a minor film actress who’s hosting a small circle of friends: Vealtninc Husz (Raúl Alonso), a Hungarian filmmaker and Agnes’ lover; Annabella Gotchling (Shannon Bachelder), a Communist visual artist; Paulinka Erdnuss (Brandy Miller), a rising film star, and Gregor “Baz” Bazwald (Grant Carriker), a gay anarchist. “We live in Berlin. It’s 1932. I feel relatively safe,” Agnes declares, in a bit of on-the-nose foreshadowing.
Of course, within two years, none of them would feel safe at all as the Nazis seize and consolidate power with alarming speed. All of the friends have political leanings or personal histories that could make them targets of the new regime, and they each wrestle with how to respond to fascism. Keep one’s head down or resist? Succumb to despair or cling to hope? Leave Germany or stay? And amidst these existential dilemmas, what is the role of their art?
Kushner employs several devices here that he later reprised in “Angels in America.” Agnes is haunted by an old woman (Ann James) with a shadowy past, reminiscent of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg who keeps watch over Roy Cohn’s deathbed in “Angels.” And instead of a heavenly visitor, Kushner’s Berliners host the devil himself (Ben Veatch), who chillingly closes the first act with a monologue that points to the “great possibilities” he senses in the modern world.
The playwright frames the Berlin scenes with commentary by Zillah (Lilah Weisman), a Jewish American graduate student in the late 1980s who studies German history in an attempt to understand her own political moment. Kushner has revised this character’s scenes several times over the years, seemingly struggling to make the structure work. The version now playing at Blank Theatre cuts the hate mail that Zillah writes to President Reagan in the originally published text, as well as the Trump references and the meta-theatrical character who stands in for Kushner in the updated version that New York’s Public Theater produced in 2019.
Firmly rooted in the Reagan era, Weisman’s Zillah is at her most compelling when she gives an impassioned speech about the logical ends of using Hitler as the standard for absolute evil. Does the character — and her German-speaking companion, Roland (Grayson Kennedy) — fit within the world of the play? Not really. But does she have some thought-provoking dialogue? Definitely.
Where this production especially excels is in balancing the Berliners’ fiery politics with their individual emotional journeys. In Kushner’s rich text, the characters reason, lecture and shout at each other over ideological differences and tactical disputes, and some of the dialogue sounds like it’s pulled from a modern op-ed. “You pretend to be progressive but actually progress distresses you. It’s untidy, upsetting,” Annabella accuses during one argument.
While the play’s politics could easily overshadow its humanity, Kapinos and company don’t let that happen. The performances are especially effective in the second act as Agnes watches her friends leave Berlin, one by one, while she can’t overcome her many mundane reasons to stay. In Schwartz’s hands, Agnes’ character arc from optimistic activist to frightened observer is a sobering cautionary tale. And Carriker’s portrayal of Baz is riveting as he recounts a brush with suicide and a surprise encounter with the Führer himself.
Even for viewers whose politics don’t neatly align with any of these characters, everyone who opposes fascism should listen to them. Throughout the play, historical notes from the script are projected onstage, such as this one for July 1932: “The Nazis win 37% of the popular vote. This is the largest genuine vote they will ever receive.” And yet, the coalition of liberal-center parties fails to stop them. To say it’s prescient almost sounds cliché now.
At the risk of making an obvious comparison, if you’ve ever been moved by “Cabaret,” you should really check out “A Bright Room Called Day.” Agnes even echoes the Weimar-set musical’s trilingual opening lyrics with her final line: “Welcome to Germany.” End of play.
Emily McClanathan is a freelance critic.
Review: “A Bright Room Called Day” (3.5 stars)
When: Through Jan. 5
Where: Greenhouse Theatre Center, 2257 N Lincoln Ave.
Running time: 2 hour, 40 minutes
Tickets: $15-$35 at blanktheatrecompany.org
