Tiny Kushner

Five short plays by Tony Kushner prove a mixed bag in this feisty import direct from the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, where they were first seen as part of a Kushner Celebration in May 2009.

It’s always a pleasure to welcome actors as good as these from the other side of the pond: Tony Taccone, one of Kushner’s longtime associates, directs a versatile quartet in some acidic, fantastic collisions between Richard Nixon’s therapist and the Recording Angel; a bizarre St Louis beauty queen turned entertainer and the scary real-life Queen of Albania; and Laura Bush and three invisible dead Iraqi children.

This latter sketch is easily the best, profoundly squirm-inducing as Kate Eifrig’s Laura offers false comfort and apology while reading from her favourite author, Dostoevksy. The worst item is a baffling series of mini-scenes delivered (very well) as a monologue by Jim Lichtscheidl as a rabble-rousing anti-tax activist.

Delightful, bright-eyed Valeri Mudek and jowly, jaundiced J C Clayton pick up the pace and help disguise the awkward genesis of the sketches (one or two were written as magazine articles), but not Kushner’s unique ability to channel his view of the world through imaginative reconstruction of some of its leading players.

- by Michael Coveney