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Tony Kushner Is Working on a Play About Donald Trump, a Person He Finds ‘Borderline Psychotic’

Tony Kushner. Photo: J. Countess/Getty Images

In Angels in America, which is currently being revived at London’s National Theater, Tony Kushner provided a withering portrait of McCarthy-era attorney Roy Cohn. Now, he’s at work on a play about Cohn’s protégé of sorts — Donald Trump. In an interview with the Daily Beast, the prolific playwright detailed plans for a play about the sitting president that will be set two years before his election. Kushner described his vision of Trump as a person who is “borderline psychotic,” noting, “It’s terrifying because he has all the power, but without the mental faculties he ought to have. I think he is seriously mentally ill, and the fact that he is in the White House is very frightening.” Kushner added that he’s interested in how the Republican party’s positions could lead to the support of a character like Trump, as the election “showed a majority of white Evangelicals did not care about the behavior of a president that doesn’t seem that Christian.” In addition to his play about Trump, Kushner is working on a film about civil-rights activist Barbara Jordan for Viola Davis; a screenplay based on the book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and a rewritten book for a West Side Story remake, both for Steven Spielberg; a musical about the death of Eugene O’Neill; and somehow, several other ideas.

Tony Kushner Is Working on a Play About Donald Trump