A Bright Room Called Day

Agnes Eggling’s Berlin apartment has long been a refuge and a gathering place for a small and close-knit group of left-wing painters, actors, and filmmakers in Weimar-Era Berlin. It is a place for them to laugh, to celebrate, and to argue in the spirit of passion and friendship. But outside on the streets, amid strikes and violent clashes, a fascist political party called Nazism is gaining in numbers and power. Set against the backdrop of Adolf Hitler’s 1932-33 takeover of power, Tony Kushner examines the way humans preserve themselves in the face of political catastrophe and how their relationships are forever changed. Always ready to provoke and enrage, Kushner pushes his narrative beyond historical reality with interruptions from a modern-day woman who challenges us to make unsettling parallels and to confront political evils in America today.