Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches

Tony Kushner's "Angels in America: Millenium Approaches" is as close as you can come right now to reviewing the recent six-hour HBO special directed by Mike Nichols. That was set as two three-hour pieces, playing on back-to-back weekends. The first weekend was the complete three-act 'Millenium Approaches'; the second was Kushner's follow-up, 'Perestroika.' 'Millenium Approaches' won a Pulitzer for Kushner, and it's easy to see why. It's an amazingly literate discourse and masterful interweaving of three strands of gay life in America as it stood before triple therapy arrived and slowed down the impact of AIDS. By contrast, 'Perestroika' feels different and distant - lots of soliloquies, extreme anger, archsymbolism - I felt like the high point of the six-hour spread was the angel's dramatic appearance at the end of 'Millenium.' Remembering back to the play, I think all the actors in Nichols adaptation really found new levels for each of their characters. For example, Pacino nailed Roy Cohn's perverse sense of logic: homosexuals (and you can hear the quotes around it when Pacino utters the word) have no power; I have power; I am not a homosexual; therefore, I do not have AIDS, I have liver cancer. I've read Cohn's biography and this is truly the way he saw things. Kushner has him nailed & Pacino really captures the essence of Kushner's words. The other thing worth noting is that Mary-Louise Parker does wonders with the role of Harper Pitt. I remember thinking of the character as overwhelmed on stage (compared to the other actors), but, wow, does she stand out in Nichols' adaptation. It's the best performance in the film, in my eyes.

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 possi

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.

A Humanization Tony Kushner's Angels in America skillfully presents genuine heartaches: loss, addiction, love, sexuality, and sickness. The play contrasts searches for integrity with complete denials of the self and releases a sense of authentic frustration. Kushner provides fascinating characters with realistic strengths and flaws. Courageously standing in the face of stereotypes, he embraces the development of individuals. Joe's identity becomes clear as he allows himself to develop into a more truthful person. Roy, on the other hand, continues to build walls hiding who he really is. Kushner not only brilliantly captures real personalities while dealing with fantasy, but also relates them to the complicated, sometimes heartless world in which they exist. He poignantly addresses the loneliness and loss that is living, but does so with a sharp humor that keeps the pages rapidly turning. Angels in America is an incredible dramatic masterpiece that challenges a transformation of the soul into a true reflection of who we really are.

Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize winning work, Angels In America, is a monumental masterpiece. Angels In America is a deep imaginative work which transcends from earth into Heaven; while focusing on various issues such as AIDS, sex, politics, and religion. In the two full-length plays, Millenium Approaches and Perestroika, Kushner illustrates highly imaginative, expressionistic-surrealistic techniques that tell a story of people trying to not only find meaning within the world, but also to find meaning within their lives. Prior is a man who is not only deteriorating due to the fact that he has AIDS, but also because his lover Louis abandoned him. Through his hallucinative encounters with his ancestors and angels; Prior will come to the realization that even when death is evident, if you have hope, you have life. Louis, Prior's ex-lover, becomes involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon, who decided to come out of the closet when his wife, Harper, who has a mild Valium addiction, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. Then there is Roy Cohn, a successful New York lawyer, who desperately tries to conceal his homosexuality and AIDS because he believes that only heterosexual men, not homosexual men, can have high power and clout.All in all, Kushner wrote an astonishing American play that emphasizes the issues of our time. Issues like AIDS and homosexuality that were blatantly disregarded during the Reagan years, prohibited among religious beliefs, and looked down upon by society as a whole. Moreover, the play transcends deeper than these issues alone. There is a realistic sense of wanting to find meaning in life, to come to the realization that we should not be shameful for who we are, or what we do, also that we are wonderful creatures who deserve the blessing of more life!Kristen Caprara