Sally Field takes on Laura Bush

• Tweet

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Sally Field and Mimi Kennedy will play Laura Bush in a Los Angeles staging of Tony Kushner's play, "Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Happy."

Kushner -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of "Angels in America" -- wrote the play during the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Nation magazine published a scene from the play before the war started, and the play has since been read at numerous anti-war rallies.

"Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Happy" -- which is highly critical of President George W. Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq -- depicts the first lady reading "The Brothers Karamazov" to three Iraqi children who have been killed as a result of ongoing armed conflict.

Field and Kennedy will both play Laura Bush in the Los Angeles production, scheduled for Monday, Oct. 18, at the Ricardo Montalban Theater in Hollywood. Kushner has given permission for the one-night benefit production, which is intended to raise funds for the liberal political organizations Progressive Democrats of America and Progressive Majority.