''G. David Schine in Hell'' is a
one-act play written by
Tony Kushner. It was first published in the ''
New York Times Magazine
''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...
'' in 1996 under the title "A Backstage Pass to Hell".
It was published as a part of the Kushner
anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors.
In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...
''Death and Taxes: Hydriotaphia and Other Plays'' in 2000 by the
Theatre Communications Group.
Plot
The play centers on
G. David Schine, who arrives in Hell, described as resembling a "
dinner theater in
Orange County California",
[ and is re-united with ]Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn (; February 20, 1927 – August 2, 1986) was an American lawyer and prosecutor who came to prominence for his role as Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings in 1954, when he assisted McCarth ...
, Richard Nixon, Whittaker Chambers, and J. Edgar Hoover. Many of the characters are dressed in drag
Drag or The Drag may refer to:
Places
* Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway
* ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania
* Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
—Hoover, for example, is wearing a "black Chanel
Chanel ( , ) is a French high-end luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. Chanel specializes in women's ready-to-wear, luxury goods, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear. Chanel is ...
dress, hose and stiletto pumps"—and Nixon bemoans the "gender confusion
Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...
" rampant in hell.[
]
Background
Kushner writes in the introduction of ''Death and Taxes'' that ''G. David Schine in Hell'' was written as a "year-end roundup of deceased notable Americans", and that ''Times''’s policy required him to edit out "much of the profanity in the piece".[
]
References
External links
''G. David Schine in Hell''
'' The New York Times Magazine'' (December 29, 1996)
Plays by Tony Kushner
Plays set in hell
1996 plays
{{1990s-play-stub