A Bright Room Called Day

by Tony Kushner

“One of the things that makes Kushner such a vibrant writer is the way he luxuriates in exuberance and sorrow, emotions that these intense Berliners have in spades. His intellectual characters are tremendously passionate and expressive, so it's hard not to care about what they care about, and what happens to them.” –Washington Post

“A juggernaut of a play.” -San Francisco Weekly

“Unabashedly political, thought-provoking, a little scary and frequently a good deal of theatrical fun… intoxicatingly visionary.” –Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner’s powerful portrayal of individual resolution, irresolution and dissolution in the face of political catastrophe, A Bright Room Called Day follows a group of artists and political activists struggling to preserve themselves in 1930s Berlin as the Weimar Republic surrenders to the seduction of fascism. Often exquisitely lyrical, always exhilaratingly intelligent, the poetic world of the play moves beyond the bounds of historical reality with the morally outraged outpourings of a contemporary New York woman. Her fury at the Reagan and British presidencies brings into stark relief the discomfiting similarities between then and now, and challenges us to remember that although evil may seem inevitable, it is never irresistible.

Tony Kushner’s plays include Angels in America; Hydriotaphia, or the Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Cornelle; Slavs!; A Bright Room Called Day; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols’s film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon.
Among many honors, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, LGBT, Historical Fiction, College

183 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Tony Kushner is an award-winning American playwright most famous for his play Angels in America, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is also co-author, along with Eric Roth, of the screenplay of the 2005 film Munich, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned Kushner (along with Roth) an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Reviews

[Carac Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to have a rule when I argued with my political friends. It was simple enough: the first person to make a comparison to the Nazis generally or Hitler specifically lost the argument.
I refer to it as a "rule". I had no clout to enforce it. But you get the idea. People are so quick to make those comparisons and they are almost always ridiculous.

In "A Bright Room Called Day" Tony Kushner juxtaposes a group of friends living in Germany as the Weimar Republic falls with a Long Ilsander in the 80s who doesn't care for Ronald Reagan.
Yet this title is far more subtle than Reagan = Hitler. I don't agree with most of Kushner's politics but this is a wonderful drama about the despair of individuals in the face of an unstoppable zeitgeist. There's magical realism, warm humor and a cameo by the Devil himself. It's an interesting read and I suspect it would make an engaging evening if you're lucky enough to live in a city where it receives one of its rare productions. And because it's Kushner the theatricality is mesmerizing.

Carac

[Ula]

i can't believe baz almost prevented world war ii

also, every day is a hating ronald reagan day

[M.J. Lyons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Kushner's Angels in America, and I'm a gigantic nerd when it comes to the politics and culture of Weimar Era and World War II Era Germany. I can't get enough of it. The abrupt and bizarre shift from decadent liberalism to genocidal fascism, I find it all extremely fascinating. So needless to say when I picked up A Bright Room Called Day and read the back I was immediately interested to read it, something that brought Kushner and Hirschfeld's Berlin together.

I find A Bright Room to be an extremely complicated play, even more so than Angels. Angels packs in so much politics into a world of extremely human characters (and angels, and ghosts, and drag queens) and it all works seamlessly. A Bright Room, on the other hand, feels much more metaphorical. The characters, the room, their discussions, their beliefs. They're human, but more abstract than those of Angels. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but I feel like it's difficult as a play. I can think of it as a play that can only be read, but at the same time I would love to see it performed (performed well, of course).

I have to say, though, Kushner has to be commended for his presenting an argument about fascism in contemporary society. Reading it, I felt like you could simply replace "Reagan" with "Bush" or "Harper" and it would still feel so true, and so completely sincere. The character of Zillah, the didactic, soapbox preaching (possibly lesbian?) Jewish woman (who, Kushner assures the reader, is not the author) was amazingly written. Another favorite, well written scene was when the devil first arrives in Berlin. I simply adore when Kushner delves into the mystical. Those moments are always my favorites.

[Roya · Rating 3 out of 5]

اگه بهتر بهش پرداخته شده بود و شخصیت‌پردازی قوی‌تر می‌بود، می‌تونست نمایشنامه‌ی خفن‌تری بشه
نااُمیدم نکرد، ولی نویسنده می‌تونست بهتر عمل کنه

[Lizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something about this play that I cannot quite pin down. I feel that, to understand it fully, I would have to not only see it live, but be part of the production. I would have to live in the mind of one of Kushner's creations.

Reading it now, however, in a post-Trump America, as the world careens into the wars in Ukraine/Russia and Palestine/Israel, it is striking to me how very cyclical history is. In that way, the play most certainly accomplishes its goal--grimly, harrowingly, painfully. Kushner's end note says he believes the play to be optimistic. I find this somewhat difficult to fully understand. Sure, there is optimism in its pages, but it feels less hopeful and more heart rending. History marches on in both directions, and the present must always be limbo. It is frightening. If it is supposed to be comforting, it feels like being trapped in a cage we cannot claw our way out of. This, perhaps, is the human condition. In that way I suppose Kushner's story is optimistic.

The Great Work began in Angels in America, but it seems to die in Bright Room, only to be resurrected and buried again with each subsequent generation. Thanks to my friend Jules for the recommendation.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play is quite frankly not very good, although I can't bring myself to completely trash any cautionary tale about the early days of Nazi Germany. The 1-page foreward which sets the context is at least worthwhile (especially today), as a summary of the history of how multiple factions splintered to allow a facist non-majority to take over and commit horrors. But if not reading an actual history text, save yourself the time reading or sitting through this play, and instead just re-read Martin Niemöller's incredible quote:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant production at Swarthmore directed by my daughter Elizabeth Stevens.
Setting is Berlin 1932-33. A group of actors and artists as they are affected by the rise of Hitler. Commentary woven in on Fascism in present day USA.

[Michael Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

As one might expect with a Kushner play, it is complex and challenging. Yet reading this as the Trump presidency near its end is quite timely. We went even farther down the path to full on fascism than we did under Reagan in my opinion.

[Karen Scher]

This play brought me over the threshold for my 50 Book Challenge, and for that, I am very grateful! I read it after seeing the newest version of the play at The Public. Fascinating to see how Kushner continues to wrestle with the themes and content in the updated 2019 edition, which leans heavily into contemporary politics.

[ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

very david sedaris coded tbh

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting. I enjoyed the parallels between Zillah and Agnes and the really old lady, whatshername . . . anyway. Kushner really amazes me with his language, how he jumps from poetry to prose in dialogue, and can then throw in songs and other rhymes and children's poems. Unbelievable. And though I think it would've interested me more, storywise at any rate, I felt a little too distanced, as if the characters were little more than paper dolls. I would like to see this one performed, see it come alive. I'd really like to like it more.

[Greg Heaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's really easy
to quickly finish a book
when half of it
is written in blank verse

and is also almost
entirely dialogue.

So much white space on every page.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a terrifying warning cry to progressives to wake up and agitate as an already untenable world (our American Weimar Republic) stands on the verge of falling completely apart.

Its Reagan era fear and anger feels entirely relevant in the age of Trump.

[Lani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some incredible scenes but overall meh.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stunning. Biting and compassionate all at once. I don't have words--just lots of feelings.

[EJ Paras · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I am not a camera; I would like to be a camera; or maybe something more I don’t know participatory than a camera even, but instead I am the Zombie Graduate Student of the Living Dead.”

My Angels in America scene partner Romeo is a HUGE Tony Kushner fan / expert. Kushner is their favorite playwright (please correct me if I’m misquoting you, Romeo — you follow me here on Goodreads). Romeo also performed as Baz from this play at our first day of conservatory showcase, and when I got to that part of the play, it hit me doubly hard, knowing the context of the play and the purgatorial circumstance that the characters find themselves in, being in Germany during the time when Hitler is rising to power.

“History repeats itself, see, first as tragedy, then as farce.”

It’s a tragic play, as I discussed with Romeo tonight in class. There’s a defeat that permeates; it’s tough to read now, especially with Trump coming to power for his second term in the US. But it’s never been more relevant. In fact, Kushner said that no one wanted to produce it for decades until Trump won his first term for President that he re-wrote it with a contemporary lens. The version I read, however, was Romeo’s personal copy (which was the 90s version).

I see no reason to be ashamed. In the face of genuine hopelessness one has no choice but to gracefully surrender reason to the angelic hosts of the irrational. They alone bring solace and comfort, for which we say, in times of distress, “Hosannah and who needs science?”

As Hitler comes to power, the characters discuss the futility of their actions. Though they stand for what they deem morally correct or acceptable, society (or at least the masses) tells them, “nice try, but, nope!” It’s hard to live your truth when fascists prey on the tired, hungry, angry, and therefore easily-manipulated populace with empty promises and harmful practices.

“Art… is never enough, it never does enough. We will be remembered for two things: Our communist art, and our fascist politics.”

Watching each of the characters fold under Nazi pressure or self-destruct due to disappointment from the world is tragic, but it’s hard to blame any of them.

“Our humanity,” he said to himself, “is defined through our struggle to overcome nature.”

Such an intellectual play. I loved how much it made me think as well as the philosophical debates. Art is certainly necessary, but some of its job is for us to educate ourselves and take in the pain — like Jane’s takeaway in Max Wolf-Friedlich’s play Job: the only way for us to take the darkness out of the world is to take it in and… suffer with it. Perhaps the knowledge seeps into our subconscious and slowly we’re radicalized to eventually… do something about the fucking bullshit of this world.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good read; as a theatre director, I would love to see this staged. A Bright Room Called Day is the story of a diverse group of friends as they live through the end of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Their story is interspersed with a Long Island woman who hates Reagan in the 1980s and performs monologues. Honestly? If the comparison that Hitler=Reagan, the play would fail. And it doesn't fail despite the tendentious interruptions. The story of people being swept away --- only one elects to remain in the "new" Germany after January 1933 --- by the swift rise of fascism is compelling. And if you live in the West, timely, despite the fact that it was written thirty years ago. Thanks to Angels in America and his subsequent work in both theatre and film, Kushner is now America's foremost playwright, and he deserves to be. A Bright Room Called Day is a chamber piece by comparison to Angels, but incredibly effective. The friends are real people, and the audience presumably will be affected by their various fates. I was as a mere reader.

Would love to take a crack at this play. Recommended.

[ម៉ូនីក]

"But through it all
I never lost my appetite,
and never ceased to look for food,
just like the rats.
I ate while the bombs fell,
ate while the bodies burned,
ate at the funerals, hurried and undignifed,
of people I had loved...
Ate
through days of pain
and nights of terror;
with cracked teeth
and split lips
I kept eating, digesting,
and looking for meals.
When they rounded us up,
and brought us to the camps,
and showed us the mass graves and said,
'You
are responsible for these.'
I was thinking, 'I
wasn't here,
didn't know,
didn't want to know,
never pulled a trigger,
never pulled a switch,
feel nothing for these beds
of sleepers, deep asleep,
but only
look at how thin they are,
and when they let us return to Munich
I wonder what I'll find for dinner."

[John Geddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s an early play by (Angels in America) Tony Kushner. Set in 1930s Berlin, it shows a group of artists and communists reacting to the slow fall of the Weimar Republic and their own frustration and impotence in its wake. The scenes are juxtaposed with modern (as of its publication in the 80s) reactions to Reaganism. Apparently there’s a new version updated for Trumpism, but I haven’t seen a version available.

It’s wonderfully written and the fact that you know everyone is in the path of a fast-moving train makes the tension really simmer. I don’t remember ever being that impacted emotionally just from reading a play.

[Stephen Fife · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tony Kushner is a brilliant person, but this is a very boring play with tedious scenes that make the same point over and over again. Simply too didactic and not dramatically compelling. It is a much better "read" than it is as a play. A play exists in time and space, and this work fails to hold the stage. But as an exploration of ideas and themes, it works much better and is worth checking out. For me it functions like Milton's "Samson Agonistes," which is compelling on the page but works only as a cure for insomnia on the stage.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kushner's play that preceded Angels In America. I'm not sure how it would be as theater--unlike some play scripts I couldn't really visualize anything out of the ordinary with it--but it is interesting in his desire to show parallels between the Weimar republic's end and Hitler's rise and a narrator/observer commenting on Reagan and what we now know was the beginning of the end of the progress of the New Deal.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

When "A Bright Room Called Day" was written, some nuance was required to draw parallels between Nazis and Republicans. The message is clear, but the connections are not made arbitrarily. now in 2025, America is even further down this dark path, and the warning to stop hits even harder.

The character of Zillah provided an effective link between the time periods. In a way, most of the characters are more archetypal than individual, but I still think the story works.

[Lorenzo Sivilotti · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a play with difficulties. Generally, the historical sections feel too abstracted and allusive for their juxtaposition with Zillah’s conspiratorial, paranoiac rage, which would in any case need to be enormously reworked to keep the play from being a museum piece of pre-9/11, pre-Trump liberal hand-wringing. Still and yet, there is much to evoke, both in then and now, and the play might be forgiven for suggesting more heft than it actually carries.
6/10

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's probably not fair but I'm rating it against his other plays. I bought this specifically to see the original interruptions about Reagan, since it's all been redone in the current staging for the current White House, and I think he could have kept it as is and it would have still resonated. The afterword is particularly enlightening.

[Theo Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

really dug this... maybe on page it works a lot better than stage, but i found the interventions refreshing. the play as a whole feels quite of its time (1990s) but i wonder how the 2016 revisal/rewrite reads or works. It contains, as Kushner often does, wit, intelligence, a deep pain, helplessness, and a keen eye for what (and who!) makes history. i enjoyed reading this.

[Gabriel Weaver · Rating 2 out of 5]

This wasn't really my cup of tea. I enjoyed reading about the history of the production and considering the ways in which Kushner played with form, but this didn't have the emotional impact I was anticipating.

[Gavin Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t have enough words. Perhaps the most gutting, nauseating, truthful depiction of fascism I’ve ever seen. Not only does it hold hands with the objective fact of it, but it completely zeroes in on the feeling. The isolated, everyday slipping and despair of it. An unforgettable read!

[Max Ring · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favorites i think. shocking disturbing parallels to the politics of today. kushner isn’t afraid to slam capitalism and writes so beautifully. can’t even find the words to describe how much i liked this.

[alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This age wanted heroes. It got us instead.”

Five stars because, despite its hiccups, I read this in one sitting and am left simmering in thought. I’d love to see it staged (or stage it myself). It rings too close to home in our current times rearing back toward full-on fascism.

[Kamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kushner...I am ever humbled.