How West Side Story Reset ItselfVulture’s theater desk considers Tony Kushner’s song reordering as a deep reenvisioning that changes the musical’s core qualities.
Steven Spielberg Meets Honest AbePlus: Eric Stoltz joins the ‘Battlestar’ franchise, Natalie Portman leaves ‘Wuthering Heights,’ and … ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’!
in other news
While the Rest of Us Flounder, Tony Kushner Ponders: What Would Lincoln Do? Jann Wenner isn’t the only one who finds Barack Obama “Lincolnesque in his own origins, his sobriety and what history now demands.” Tony Kushner is working on a screenplay for Steven Spielberg based on Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book about Lincoln’s last two years as president before he was assassinated. “He could bring together people of wildly disparate ideological bents and remind them of the moral core of their visions,” gushed Kushner about Honest Abe last night at a benefit dinner for Gay Men’s Health Crisis. “He brought into his Cabinet people who hated each other.” Would Lincoln, that original Log Cabin Republican, be a GOPer today? “Absolutely not,” the Kush assured. “He was a deeply progressive man and a deep believer in the Constitution. Any party that could make George Bush, who has raped the Constitution, is not one that Abe Lincoln would want anything to do with.” Well! So, uh, WWAD (that’s Who Would Abe Endorse?) in ‘08? Kushner: OHB, of course! “They’re both from Illinois. You can really trace a line from the politics of Lincoln through American pragmatism to the politics of Barack Obama.” Okay. And how would he weigh in on the Spitzer flame-out?
