Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #373898 in Books
• Published on: 1993-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Customer Reviews

Angels among us...
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.

Synopsis
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

Interesting insight into the lives of homosexuals
When I first started to read Angels in America, I wasn't quite sure of what to expect. My first thought was that it would be boring or slow moving because it's topic didn't quite interest me too much. However, once I started reading before I knew it 50 pages had gone by. It is written in a way that allows a change of pace in the story. It isn't just about a homosexual and his wife, it involves many other people who impact their lives. And we look into each one separately, so it provides for a break. It is also written well because it actually gives you a feel for the character's lives. It is like you are there watching as everything is going on. Characters are exciting, they liven up the story with visions, hallucinations, and conflicts throughout the play. One particular concept that I liked about the story was that it showed the impact of a homosexual who is married to a woman, yet sleeping with another man. It is interesting to see the effects of such a relationship and there was the question of if, or how she was going to find out. If asked, I would have to recommend Angels in America to anyone who wanted to read a well-crafted and interesting story.