Customer Reviews

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a play providing scene after scene of intense power and truth. What may be most incredible is that this work explores nearly every facet of American life in the modern world- AIDS, family, religion, sexual orientation, truth, the struggle to survive, community- and somehow presents the whole package in a way that is lovingly attentive to detail and very accessible. The storyline is intricate- Prior,a man with aids finds out he's a prophet, his ex-lover Louis moves in with Joe, a closeted Mormon lawyer who leaves his valium addict wife Harper to fend off her drug induced illusions, God has abandoned heaven and mankind,and somehow Roy Cohn, a gay black nurse named Belize and Joe's Mormon mother Hannah come into the story. Kushner's genius is that he has found a way to marry grandiose schemes and themes with characters who come alive off the page and honestly make you weep. At once funny, tragic, and always vibrant, Angels in America takes on the world and delivers an entire universe. The best play of the nineties, perhaps one of the greatest ever written. Astonishing.

I'm a college student majoring in Theater Design. I had to read this play for one of my classes my freshman year. So I sat down expecting to plod through a story that I'd never read again. Boy was I shocked! I loved it! I couldn't put it down until I'd read the last page, and then I got right online and ordered the sequel. Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of the second book. I haven't read it in a while, but from what I remember it's more offensive, and honestly, a little more like smut. There's an angel with 7 vaginas and it has sex with one of the characters...one of the gay characters..go figure. The second book also seems to take more pot shots at God, which I didn't appreciate as a Christian. Anyway. This is a review of the first book, not the second. (just reminding myself!) I have 7 big bookcases of books at my parents' house, plus my dad is a librarian, so I do a LOT of reading. This book is ALWAYS one of the few "Chosen" books that I take to college with me to keep in my dorm. And just as a side note, I'm not gay, so this book is NOT just for gay people like some of the people whom I've talked to seem to think. BUY IT! You'll be enlightened and inspired to think.

Plays are difficult things to read. It is rare to find a play that is widely read outside of classroom assignments. We have become so accustomed to the narrative form that it can be discombobulating to read stage directions, set descriptions, and stark lines of characters with little sense of the nuance of delivery, the emotion behind the words. Of course, we also have to thank Mr. William Shakespeare for scaring most people away from reading plays in play form. Great that the Bard is, many people look back on their school assignments of reading with a certain amount of angst. Play form is difficult enough, but surely Shakespeare could be translated into English!

'Angels in America, Pt. 1: Millennium Approaches' is, linguistically speaking, a much more accessible play. But it still suffers (as perhaps all plays must) from the lack of description beyond the words. In this regard, plays are very much more like poetry - they tend to latch on to single elements rather than taking the fuller form of narrative, and leave the rest to the imagination of the reader.

Tony Kushner's play is imaginative. Like great playwrights of old, he takes contemporary situations and figures and embellishes them, keeping faith with the overall meanings in society and the overall characters he's using, but is careful to make it known that this is a work of fiction.

We begin the play, staged (we are told) in the barest of scenery with a minimum of scene shifting and no black-outs - imagine, if you will, almost a stream of consciousness as the play progress - there is a funeral. A Jewish funeral. Not an unusual scene in New York, but the Rabbi doesn't know the woman, and so gives generic funereal orations.

Scene shifts to the office of Roy Cohn (alas, an all too real figure, but this is, Kushner emphasises, a fictional account). Here we encounter the high-powered, high-strung Cohn in his glorious best (or worst) while Joe (a conservative Mormon lawyer) is being chatted up for a job, which would put him in Cohn's debt.

Scene shifts - we see Joe's wife Harper planning a trip with a travel agent, Mr. Lies.

And so forth - in the course of this tale, we meet several people who are in various stages of AIDS. This is the meaning of the play. We encounter out gays and closeted gays, poor gays and rich gays, and the occasional straight suffering person, too. Often we have scene shifts and double scenes with two sets of action going on simultaneously. The moral issues of life with AIDS (which, as it happens, often reflect the moral issues of life more generally) are played out in political, social and religious terms.

Take, for instance, Louis, who attends the funeral (conducted by the Rabbi), who is contemplating leaving his lover Prior, who has started to show symptoms. The interplay between Louis and the Rabbi shows differing ideas not only between religions but also within religions toward difficulties.

Later, Cohn launches into an extended tale to his doctor of how he couldn't possibly be a homosexual:

'This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of trying cannot get a pissant antidiscrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who now nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout. Does this sound like me?'

Ultimately, denial is deep with Cohn.

Doctor: You have AIDS, Roy.
Cohn: No, Henry, no. AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer.

Ultimately, issues of drug access, relationship building and deterioration, and the overall morality of life is played out among the characters. Perhaps the image of Ethel Rosenberg, who appears to Cohn in one of his weakened delusional states, says it best:

History is about to crack wide open. Millennium approaches.

The play concludes as an Angel makes a traumatic entry at the end (the cracking open that Rosenberg mentions, perhaps?) appearing to Prior, after we have witnessed Prior's now ex-lover Louis making a connection with our conservative Mormon lawyer Joe.

There is a message. We the audience are not told what it is.

Despite this play's dealing with late-twentieth-century issues, it seemed to me to come out a tradition from the first half of the twentieth century--derived largely from psychoanaltic thought--that one's motivations and behavior have little to do with spirituality and mostly to do with repression and sexuality. Then when I read the author's note I noticed that, indeed, he was inspired by those early-twentieth-century thinkers & writers. The play seemed old-fashioned to me.

That said, the characterizations are first-rate, and I can't wait for the amazing Jeffrey Wright to reprise his Tony-winning performance as Belize when HBO airs their production of "Angels."

I'd love to see a Part 3 where Joe and a new lover are married by a lesbian United Church of Christ pastor, demonstrating that it really is possible to be gay and Christian at the same time!

I read both installments of Angels in America when I was a senior in high school. I bet I was the only student in my school who has even heard of it. This is a pinnacle of American drama and Kushner is taking it to levels of the highest theatricality. To me, this play is reminiscent of Williams, O'Neill, with hints of Beckett's absurdity, Marquez's magical realism, Lorca's passion, and Larry Kramer's themes. It is impossible to due these plays justice by comparing them to those of their predecessors-it is a masterpiece all its own. Using the recurrent theme in modern drama-homosexuality-Angels brings home many issues that we face as a human family. Rumors have it that HBO is filming both plays as a movie or mini-series, and I can't wait for everyone to be able to experience the two Tony award and Pulitzer winning art of Tony Kushner that I will never forget.

Kushner's _Angels in America_ is superb!! Originally written to be preformed on stage it also reads well. It is easy for one
s imagination to visualize the characters and their trials and tribulations as the story unfolds.

AIDS is disease that has touched many... not only the "gay" community but this book shows the real "human" side of the gay community that often is buried under homophobia and fear.

This is a beautiful, inspiring, heart breaking, witty, and hugely ambitious undertaking. It needs to be seen, then purchased and savoured for a lifetime. As a commentary on redemption and forgiveness, there's nothing like it.

(See it all in one day the first time at least.)

I thought both parts of Angels In America were wonderful. I had seen the shows done at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and I was so amazed by their acting, staging, and overall show that I just HAD to go out and get these books. If you pick it up and just start reading, it can be confusing. I do suggest you see the show(s) live, if you can. The plot is so moving and real. There are so many scenes that are so touching, sad, halarious, breath taking, and leave you in awe. Maybe this was because I had seen the shows first. But I can still, after several years, pick up these plays and enjoy them all over again.

Angels in America Part One and Part Two, although in the same context with the same characters, are very different books. Part One, is more serious. It focuses on the main character (Prior) and his struggle with AIDS and with his boyfriend, Louis. Although I laughed through both of them, Part Two was more funny and conclusive. Tony Kushners brilliant style creates a setting where you can approach a solemn subject and still have humor. I highly reccommend this book to anyone interested in the lives of people- however similar or different.

I read the first part for a theatre class and I don't think I really got it. Then I saw both plays - wow! Incredible, funny, tragic, and cutting edge at the same time. Read the plays and go to a production if you can!