Tony Kushner is flaming gay butt pirate he's married to his boyfriend
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WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS: VOWS
WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS: VOWS; Mark Harris and Tony Kushner
By LOIS SMITH BRADY
Published: May 4, 2003
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STANDING side by side in their modest, book-filled Manhattan apartment, Tony Kushner and Mark Harris may look like brothers, but they have very different personalities.
Mr. Kushner, who wrote the plays ''Angels in America'' and, more recently, ''Homebody/Kabul,'' dresses like a graduate student, all baggy sweaters and wrinkled corduroys. He speaks rapidly and exudes anxiety. Describing his writing habits, he said, ''I work best after the deadline has passed, when I'm in a panic.''
Mr. Harris, the editor at large of Entertainment Weekly magazine in New York, is as neat as someone in a toothpaste commercial. ''Mark is more grounded,'' Mr. Kushner said. ''To some extent, he's a person who needs more hysteria in his life.''
To which Mr. Harris responded, ''Now I have plenty.''
Mr. Kushner, 46, and Mr. Harris, 39, met five years ago at a party given by Michael Mayer, a stage director. Mr. Harris remembered: ''I thought Tony was cute and extremely shy. I was touched by how tentative he was.''
Later that night, the two chatted online for hours. ''His grammar was perfect,'' Mr. Kushner recalled. ''That was a turn-on.''
Like Mr. Kushner, who avoids parties -- especially those in his honor -- Mr. Harris is a homebody. He reads cookbooks in his spare time. ''Every recipe is a story with a happy ending,'' he said.
Their dates took place either in theaters or bookstores. ''When Coliseum Books closed, we practically wore black armbands,'' Mr. Kushner said.
Mr. Harris had never discussed his love life with his mother, Dr. Harriet Wisniewski, a radiologist in New York. (His father, Lewis Harris, died in 1978.) But after he and Mr. Kushner became a serious couple, he called her. ''I said, 'O.K., two pieces of big news,' '' Mr. Harris recalled. ''At first, she worried being gay meant being alone, but then she realized for me, it meant really being able to fall in love.''
Though friends describe Mr. Harris and Mr. Kushner as an ''electric couple,'' they avoid public displays of affection except when absolutely necessary, say, during turbulence on an airplane.
''If you're gay and you can't hold hands, or you're black and you can't catch a taxi, or you're a woman and you can't go into the park, you are aware there's a menace,'' Mr. Kushner said. ''That's costly on a psychic level. The world should be striving to make all its members secure.''
They started planning their commitment ceremony soon after 9/11, buying rings at Tiffany's and complementary gray-toned suits at Saks.
The sales clerks were all accommodating, they said. ''One cake designer I called said, 'We specialize in elaborate beautiful white flowers all over the cake,' '' Mr. Harris recalled. ''So I said, 'I should tell you, this is for two men.' There was a slight pause and she said, 'I can put little baseball players all over it?' ''
Last Sunday, they affirmed their partnership before 150 guests at their favorite restaurant, Gabriel's, near Columbus Circle. They wound their way through the crowd, to the canopy, where Rabbi Ellen Lippmann blessed the couple while wrapping them together with a prayer shawl, pulling them so close their eyeglasses touched. And when she offered the couple a goblet of wine, Mr. Harris sipped, then Mr. Kushner gulped.
''When Tony said, 'I do,' it was the first time in his entire life he answered a question with two words,'' said George C. Wolfe, the director.
The crowd also included Mike Nichols and Diane Sawyer; the actresses Linda Emond and Kathleen Chalfant; Larry Kramer, the playwright; and dozens of aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, many of them crying.
''I'm gushing like the Syracuse players did when they won the national basketball championship,'' said Mark Wisniewski, a cousin of Mr. Harris.
Watching the close-knit family scene, Mr. Nichols said, ''Tony is constantly making his life an expression of how he would like the world to be.''
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