Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National
Themes is a two-part play by
American playwright Tony Kushner. The work won numerous awards, including the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk
Award for Outstanding Play. Part one of the play premiered in 1991, and its Broadway opening was in 1993.
The play is a
complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and
homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are
supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains
multiple roles for several of the actors. Initially and primarily focusing on a
gay couple in Manhattan, the play also has several other storylines, some of
which occasionally intersect.
The two parts of
the play are separately presentable and entitled Millennium Approaches and Perestroika,
respectively. The play has been adapted into a 2003 miniseries of the same
title, and a 2004 opera by Peter Eotvos.
Part One: Millennium Approaches
Set in New York
City, the play opens at the end of October 1985, with Louis Ironson, a gay Jew, learning that his lover, WASP Prior Walter, has AIDS. As Prior's illness progresses, Louis
becomes unable to cope and moves out, leaving Prior to deal with his
abandonment. Prior begins to receive visits from a pair of ghosts who claim to
be his own ancestors, and hears an angelic voice telling him to prepare for her
arrival. Prior does not know if these visitations are caused by an emotional
breakdown or if they are real.
Meanwhile, closeted gay Mormon and Republican Joe Pitt, a law clerk in the same judge's
office where Louis holds a clerical job, is offered a position in Washington,
D.C., by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe hesitates
to accept out of concern for his agoraphobic wife Harper, who refuses to move. Harper suspects that Joe does not love
her in the same way she loves him, which is confirmed when Joe confesses his
homosexuality. Harper retreats into a drug-fueled escapist fantasy, including a
dream where she crosses paths with Prior even though the two of them have never
met in the real world. Joe's conservative mother Hannah arrives in New York,
where she finds that in reality Harper has been wandering the streets of the
city while Joe begins an affair with Louis. Denying her son's homosexuality, Hannah
instead tries to force a reconciliation between Harper and Joe.
Connecting all
these characters is Roy Cohn, himself deeply closeted, who has just learned he has AIDS. Cohn uses his
political connections to secure a supply of an experimental drug, AZT, at the expense of withholding the drug
from participants in a drug trial. Now alone in a hospital, Cohn finds himself judged by his night nurse
Belize (a former drag queen and a friend of Prior's) and the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, co-defendant and executed with her
husband Julius years before when
Cohn was prosecutor at their espionage trial.
At the end of
Part One, Prior is visited by an angel, who proclaims Prior to be a prophet and tells him that "the Great Work" has begun.
Part Two: Perestroika
As the play
continues, it is December 1985, and the Angel reveals to Prior that Heaven is a
beautiful city that resembles San Francisco, but that God, bored with his angels, made
mankind with the power to change and create. The progress of mankind on Earth
caused Heaven to physically deteriorate. Finally, on the day of the San Francisco
earthquake, God abandoned
Heaven. The Angel brings Prior a message for mankind—"stop
moving!"—in the belief that if man ceases to progress, Heaven will be
restored. Prior confides this vision to Belize, but Belize believes that Prior
is projecting his own fears
of abandonment into an elaborate hallucination.
Prior goes to a
Mormon visitor's center to research angels, where he meets Harper, who has
slowly returned to reality. The two recognize each other from their shared
dream. Prior collapses from pneumonia and Hannah rushes him back to the
hospital. Prior tells her about his vision and is surprised when Hannah
believes him based on her belief in angelic revelations within the Mormon church. At the hospital, the Angel reappears
enraged that Prior rejected her message. Prior wrestles the Angel, who relents and opens a ladder into Heaven. Prior climbs into Heaven and
tells the other angels that he refuses to deliver their message, as without
progress, humanity will perish.
Belize informs
Louis about Joe's connection with Cohn, whom Louis despises for his
hypocritical anti-gay rhetoric. Louis goes to confront Joe directly, and Joe
physically assaults him, after which Louis leaves him for good. Now abandoned
by his wife and his lover, and with no one else to turn to, Joe goes to Cohn
for guidance. Cohn, meanwhile, has just learned that his political enemies have
moved to have him disbarred. Enraged, he vows to remain a lawyer until the day he dies. Rather than
comforting Joe, Cohn viciously berates him for leaving his wife for another
man, forcing Joe to realize that Louis's opinion of Cohn was true. He rebukes
Cohn and leaves the man to die alone. Ethel Rosenberg watches Cohn's last supporter
abandon him before delivering the final blow: Cohn has been disbarred after
all. Cohn dies shortly thereafter. Belize forces Louis to visit Cohn's room,
where Louis recites the Kaddish for Cohn. Unseen by the living, Ethel joins Louis in the prayer,
symbolically forgiving Cohn before she departs for the hereafter. Belize and
Louis then steal Cohn's hoarded AZT for Prior.
The play
concludes five years later. Prior and Louis are still separated, but Louis,
along with Belize, remains close in order to support and care for Prior; Harper
forgave Joe, but refused to stay with him, instead moving to San Francisco; and
Hannah has found a new perspective on her rigid beliefs, allowing her to accept
her son as he is. Prior, Louis, Belize, and Hannah gather before the angel
statue in Bethesda Fountain. Prior
talks of the legend of the Pool of Bethesda, where the sick were healed. Prior delivers the play's final lines
directly to the audience, affirming his intentions to live on and telling them
that "the Great Work" shall continue.
Characters
The play is
written for eight actors, each of whom plays two or more roles. Kushner's doubling, as indicated in the
published script, requires several of the actors to play the opposite gender.
Prior Walter – A gay
man with AIDS. Throughout the play, he experiences various heavenly visions.
When the play begins, he is dating Louis Ironson. His best friend is a nurse
named Belize.
Louis Ironson – Prior's
boyfriend. Unable to deal with Prior's disease, he ultimately abandons him. He
meets Joe Pitt and later begins a relationship with him.
Harper Pitt – An agoraphobic Mormon housewife with incessant Valium-induced hallucinations. After a
revelation from Prior (whom she meets when his heavenly vision and her
hallucination cross paths), she discovers that her husband is gay and struggles
with it, considering it a betrayal of her marriage.
Joe Pitt – Harper's
husband and a deeply closeted gay Mormon, clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals,
Second Circuit, and friend of Roy Cohn. Joe eventually abandons his wife for a
relationship with Louis. Throughout the play, he struggles with his sexual
identity.
Roy Cohn – A closeted
gay lawyer, based on real life Roy Cohn. Just as in history, it is eventually revealed that he has contracted HIV
and the disease has progressed to AIDS, which he insists is liver cancer to
preserve his reputation.
Hannah Pitt – Joe's
mother. She moves to New York after her son drunkenly comes out to her on the phone. She arrives to find
that Joe has abandoned his wife.
Belize – A former drag
queen, he is Prior's ex-boyfriend and best friend. He later becomes Roy Cohn's
nurse.
The Angel/Voice – A
messenger from Heaven who visits Prior and tells him he's a prophet.
There are also a
series of supporting and minor characters played by the core eight actors:
Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz – An elderly orthodox Rabbi. He performs the funeral service for Louis'
grandmother in Act one of Millennium
Approaches and gives him advice on his situation with Prior. Played by
the actor playing Hannah.
Mr. Lies – One of
Harper's imaginary friends. A smooth talking agent for the International Order
of Travel Agents. Played by the actor playing Belize.
Emily – A smart-mouthed
nurse who attends to Prior. Played by the actor playing the Angel.
Henry – Roy Cohn's
doctor, who diagnoses him with AIDS. Played by the actor playing Hannah.
Martin Heller – A
publicity agent to the Reagan Administration's Justice Department and Roy's toady. Played by the actor playing Harper.
Ethel Rosenberg – The
ghost of a woman executed for being a Communist spy, based on the real life Ethel Rosenberg. She visits Roy, whom she blames for her
conviction and execution. Played by the actor playing Hannah.
Prior 1 and Prior 2 –
The ghosts of two of Prior Walter's ancestors. Prior 1 was a gloomy Yorkshire
farmer from the 13th century while Prior 2 was a 17th-century British
aristocrat. They both arrive to herald the Angel's arrival. Played by the
actors playing Joe and Roy, respectively.
The Man in the Park – A
gay prostitute Louis has sex with in Central Park. Played by the actor playing Prior.
Sister Ella Chapter –
Hannah's realtor friend who helps her sell her house. Played by the actor
playing the Angel.
A Homeless Woman – A
crazed homeless woman Hannah encounters when she arrives in New York. Played by
the actor playing the Angel.
The Eskimo – An
imaginary friend in Harper's Antarctic hallucination. Played by the actor
playing Joe.
Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov – "The World's Oldest Living Bolshevik", whose speech in the opening of Perestroika sets up the theme of
whether the world should continue to move forward. Played by the actor playing
Hannah.
Mormon Family – A
mannequin family in the Diorama Room of the Mormon Visitors' Center where Hannah
and Harper volunteer. The father resembles Joe, and later becomes him in
Harper's delusions. He is played by the actor playing Joe. The mother comes to
life in Harper's imagination and speaks to her. She is played by the actor
playing the Angel. The two sons, Caleb and Orrin, are voiced offstage by the
actors playing Belize and the Angel, respectively.
The Continental Principalities – The Angel Council Prior confronts in Heaven. They are in charge of both
Heaven and Earth after God's desertion. They are the Angels Europa (played by
the actor playing Joe), Africanii (played by the actor playing Harper), Oceania
(played by the actor playing Belize), Asiatica (played by the actor playing
Hannah), Australia (played by the actor playing Louis), and Antarctica (played
by the actor playing Roy).
The entire
two-part play debuted on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993, directed
by George C. Wolfe, with Millennium
Approaches performed on May 4 and Perestroika
joining it in repertory on November 23, closing December 4, 1994. The original
cast included Ron Leibman, Stephen Spinella, Kathleen Chalfant, Marcia Gay
Harden, Jeffrey Wright, Ellen McLaughlin, David Marshall Grant and Joe
Mantello. Among the replacements during the run were F. Murray Abraham (for Ron
Leibman), Cherry Jones (for Ellen McLaughlin), Dan Futterman (for Joe
Mantello), Cynthia Nixon (for Marcia Gay Harden) and Jay Goede (for David
Marshall Grant). Millennium Approaches
and Perestroika were awarded,
in 1993 and 1994 respectively, both the Tony Awards for Best Play and Drama
Desk Awards for Outstanding Play.
The published
script indicates that Kushner made a few revisions to Perestroika in the following year. These changes officially
completed the work in 1995. In 1994, the first national tour launched at the
Royal George Theatre in Chicago, directed by Michael Mayer, with the following
cast: Peter Birkenhead as Louis Ironson, Reginald Flowers as Belize, Kate
Goehring as Harper Pitt, Jonathan Hadary as Roy Cohn, Philip E. Johnson as Joe Pitt,
Barbara E. Robertson as Hannah Pitt, Robert Sella as Prior, and Carolyn Swift
as the Angel.
In April 2017, a
West End revival began previews at the National Theatre, London in the
Lyttleton Theatre. The cast included Andrew Garfield as Prior with Russell
Tovey as Joe, Denise Gough as Harper, James McArdle as Louis Ironson, and
Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn. In 2018, the production was nominated for six Olivier
Awards, including the Award for Best Revival. In April 2018, Gough won Best
Actress in a Supporting Role and the production Best Revival. In February 2018,
the 2017 Royal National Theatre production transferred to Broadway for an
18-week engagement at the Neil Simon Theatre. The majority of the London cast
returned, with Lee Pace replacing Tovey as Joe, and Beth Malone playing the
Angel at certain performances. Previews began on February 23, 2018 with opening
night on March 25.
Kushner prefers
that the theatricality be transparent. In his notes about staging, he writes:
"The plays benefit from a pared-down style of presentation, with scenery
kept to an evocative and informative minimum. [...] I recommend rapid scene
shifts (no blackouts!), employing the cast as well as stagehands in shifting
the scene. This must be an actor-driven event. [...] The moments of magic [...]
are to be fully imagined and realized, as wonderful theatrical illusions—which means it's OK if the wires show, and
maybe it's good that they do..." Kushner is an admirer of Brecht, who
practiced a style of theatrical production whereby audiences were often
reminded that they were in a theatre. The choice to have "no
blackouts" allows audiences to participate in the construction of a
malleable theatrical world.
One of the many
theatrical devices in Angels is
that each of the eight main actors has one or several other minor roles in the
play. For example, the actor playing the nurse, Emily, also plays the Angel,
Sister Ella Chapter (a real estate agent), and a homeless woman. This doubling and
tripling of roles encourages
the audience to consider the elasticity of, for example, gender and sexual
identities.
Angels in America
received numerous awards, including the 1993 and 1994 Tony Awards for Best
Play. The play's first part, Millennium
Approaches, received the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play garnered much praise upon its release
for its dialogue and exploration of social issues. "Mr. Kushner has
written the most thrilling American play in years," wrote The New York Times. A
decade after the play's premiere, Metro Weekly labeled it "one of the most
important pieces of theater to come out of the late 20th century." In
response to the frank treatment of homosexuality and AIDS, and brief male
nudity, the play quickly became subject to controversial reaction from
conservative and religious groups, sometimes labelled as being part of the
"culture war”.
Neil Simon Theatre
Christened the Alvin in 1927, the Neil
Simon Theatre was renamed in 1983 to honor America's most prolific
playwright, following the successful engagement of Brighton Beach Memoirs, the
first play of an autobiographical trilogy about his youth with his family.
Fittingly, in 1985, the second play of Simon's trilogy, Biloxi Blues, played there successfully. In 1992, Mr. Simon returned again
with his play Jake’s Women. Since 2000, the Neil Simon
has been filled with music and dancing as the home to two of Broadway’s most
popular productions, namely the acclaimed revival of The Music Man and the Tony Award–winning Best Musical Hairspray. The Neil Simon Theatre has 1,445 seats and is one of The
Nederlander Organization’s nine Broadway theatres.
