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- 200 pages
- English
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- Available on iOS & Android
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A Bright Room Called Day
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About This Book
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America comes this powerful portrayal of individual dissolution and resolution in the face of political catastrophe.“It’s brash, audacious and...intoxicatingly visionary.”—Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune
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Yes, you can access A Bright Room Called Day by Tony Kushner in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & American Drama. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
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PART ONE
dp n="16" folio="" ?dp n="17" folio="3" ? PROLOGUE
EVENING MEAL IN A WINDSTORM
(Lights up on Zillah at her table, reading. Repeated slides of a huge crowd rallying in support of Hitler, everyone giving the fascist salute. With each slide the people in the crowd draw nearer, till finally we fix on a single figure, a woman who isnât saluting. Zillah looks up, holds up the book she has been reading.)
Slide: JANUARY 1, 1932.
(Lights up on Agnesâs apartment in Berlin. Seated around a table: Agnes, Husz, Baz, Paulinka and Gotchling. Itâs night; the scene is lit by candlelight. Everyone has been drinking.)
GOTCHLING
Capitalism is a system of ... of ...
dp n="18" folio="4" ?PAULINKA
Digestion! A digestive system!
Husz
Weâve drunk too much.
GOTCHLING
Again.
Husz
(To Gotchling) You hold your liquor. I admire that. Did you know . . .
GOTCHLING
What?
Husz
Did you know that candlelight aids the digestive processes?
GOTCHLING
Yes. I knew that. And the fennel in grapeskins helps you see in the dark, but wine makes your gums shrivel prematurely.
BAZ
I think Iâm going to vomit . . .
PAULINKA
Ah! The advantages of opium.
AGNES
Midnight.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
(General exultation, âHappy New Year!â)
AGNES
Oh ... (Laughs)
GOTCHLING
What?
dp n="19" folio="5" ?AGNES
Oh my ... (Laughs)
BAZ
What? What?
AGNES
All of you. Look at your faces. Itâs a kind of perfect thing, like a circle, a round perfection.
GOTCHLING
Cheap sentiment. Cheap geometry. Time for coffee.
AGNES
No! I feel ... what? Baz, what do I feel, I feel ...
BAZ
Do you feel warm, Agnes?
AGNES
Yes.
BAZ
And ... complete, Agnes?
AGNES
Complete? Mostly.
BAZ
Safe?
AGNES
Well . . .
BAZ
Relatively safe?
AGNES
We live in Berlin.
Itâs 1932.
I feel relatively safe.
dp n="20" folio="6" ?Husz
Sufficient for the times.
(He stands up)
Now I would like to propose a toast.
GOTCHLING
Excellent ideas! A man of ideas! Propose, Husz.
HUSZ
To Agnes!
GOTCHLING
To Agnes! Good-hearted and brave!
HUSZ
Occupant prima of our affections, immovable tenant of this small, solid room: health, happiness and relative safety on this fierce and splendid night and for many years to come, dear heart.
EVERYONE
To Agnes.
(Silence.)
PAULINKA
And in the silence, an angel passed over.
BAZ
Now what to do to begin the new year properly?
GOTCHLING
You were going to vomit.
BAZ
Yes, but now I have a better idea. Letâs make up a story.
HUSZ
What kind of story?
dp n="21" folio="7" ?BAZ
One we compose together. A story about ... something.
GOTCHLING
About a cold night.
PAULINKA
A story about a cold night. Good. I begin.
BAZ
Please! This is Agnesâ party. Agnesâ apartment. Agnes should begin. Begin, Agnes.
AGNES
Oh, letâs see.... Ha!
There was a winter once in Berlin when a terrible wind, cold as death, chased people through the streets at night and blew ice into their bones and killed them. Well there was one man who had to walk to work late every evening ...
GOTCHLING
He was a night watchman. And he said to himself, âThis wind is murder.â And he decided to spend his last hard-earned penny on a thick woolen coat and an extra-long scarf and then the night wind could blow all it liked, heâd be warm and safe. âOur humanity,â he said to himself, âis defined through our struggle to overcome nature.â So he did buy those things, and ...
PAULINKA
And he wore them at night on his way to work, and the wind saw what he was up to, and it grew very angry and sharp, and it blew all the harder, and in seconds flat the man felt so cold he might as well have been naked. Score one for nature.
GOTCHLING
One for nature.
dp n="22" folio="8" ?BAZ
And he knew his plan had failed, and the wind was killing him, so with blue and frozen lips he prayed to God to save him from the wind, but of course God didnât, and he caught a severe influenza.
HUSZ
And as he lay on his deathbed, he thought he heard the wind whistle, âJust you wait.â His new coat and scarf hung from a peg on the wall. He could feel his life slipping away. He said to himself, âI wonder whatâs next?â...
Table of contents
- TITLES BY TONY KUSHNER AVAILABLE FROM TCG
- Title Page
- PRODUCTION NOTES
- A BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTE
- PART ONE
- PART TWO
- EPILOGUE
- APPENDIX X - ZILLAH INTERRUPTIONS, NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL VERSION
- AFTERWORD
- Copyright Page