The Bitter Queen
This website allows you to get a feel for the overall climate towards homosexuals in this time period.
http://www.bitterqueen.typepad.com/
The History of HIV up to 1986
This site shows a step by step history of HIV up to 1986. It allows us to track what information was available and how widespread the fear of AIDS, and thereby homosexuals, was in 1985.
http://www.avert.org/his81_86.htm
Mormon.org
This website allows us to look into the major religious group that is represented in this script.
http://www.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/
Living with AIDS
This website gives us answers about how people live with AIDS. A lot of the fears are asauged also. A lot of questions are answered.
http://www.apositivelife.com/index.html
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Dramaturgs Statement
Angels in America
By Tony Kushner
A Dramaturgs Statement
By Charles Page
We all chose to do theater for different reasons. Some like the entertainment. Others enjoy the art. What we have to ask ourselves is why we are here. I believe that, when tackling a show as important and integrated into our current social picture as “Angels in America”, we absolutely must be honest with ourselves about why we are working on it. This show has many very heavy subjects that, if not treated properly, have the ability to be offensive on the most basic level. In productions in the past, when actors or designers have not given proper respect to the issues that are brought on stage in this show, it is easily noticeable. This script seems to reward those who put all they have into it and punish those who have short foresight. So when we attack this script we must do it with the most honorable of intentions and the most diligent of work.
Homosexuality is a major theme of this show. Not only homosexuality but the homosexual subculture and how it fit into the mainstream culture of 1985. We have to remember that it had only been three years since AIDS had officially named. Much about the disease was unknown. Some still thought that it was a plague brought on by the “gays”. The non acceptance of the homosexual man was nothing new. However this disease was used as some as a social weapon to condemn homosexual men. New York City sought to close down gay establishments under the guise of decreasing the risk of spreading the AIDS virus. Anywhere that catered to homosexual men where sexual contact “may” occur was closed down, either by direct or indirect methods such as tax reviews, audits, etc. This type of anti-homosexual hysteria is epitomized in the character Roy Cohn. He is belligerent at the idea that he may have a “gay disease”. This dynamic of the surrounding worlds view on homosexuality is very important to the script. Not taking into consideration what it was to walk through a world that, not only did not understand your lifestyle, but also blamed you for bringing an incurable disease upon the earth would be folly.
The architecture of 1985 New York City is pretty much the same as it is today (with the exception of the Twin Towers). The places where the show takes place seem to have a slight patina on them. Middle class would be the way that I would describe them. New York had the fashion but it was still a business center in 1985. The show deteriorates as it progresses. Maybe the set could do the same? A static set has brought many bad reviews. This show is not about big government. It is about individuals, both small and large, and the struggle that they must face dealing with a society that tells them they are bad when all they really want is to be happy. I think that this can translate into the set.
Another theme is the acceptance of the homosexual underground by the main characters that are gay. We see Louis “putting on the face”. In other words he is putting on women’s makeup to make himself feel pretty. This embrace of the drag queen (although being a drag queen does not necessarily indicate homosexuality!) is very important. Visiting the “bath” is another instance where the homosexual subculture is visible in the play. The baths were places where men would shower and meet for sex. Many of these were shut down in 1984-1986 in New York City along with several “leather bars” and many places that just catered to the homosexual community.
We must not only look at the homosexual community in 1985 but also the world in general. Many of us are old enough to remember 1985 but it is so easy to forget. Stevie Wonder was hot. The world seemed to be singing about love, compassion, and helping your fellow man, as evidenced by the “Live Aid” concert for famine relief in Ethiopia. While many thought that you could contract AIDS by shaking hands with a gay man artists were crooning about love. A-ha released “Take on me”, Foreigner wanted to know what love is, and stars from all walks of life recorded “We Are The World”.
All in all taking into account the world that was in 1985 in New York City will help this production from beginning to end. We have an opportunity to address the issues that this show serves up with aplomb and power.
Eductaional Packet
Angels In America
By Tony Kushner
Educators Packet
THE PLAY:
“Angels In America” is one of the most hotly debated theatrical productions of the late 20th century. It focuses on the stories of two troubled couples, one gay, one straight: "word processor" Louis Ironson and his lover Prior Walter, and Mormon lawyer Joe Pitt and his wife Harper. After the funeral of Louis's grandmother, Prior tells him that he has contracted AIDS, and Louis panics. Meanwhile, Joe is offered a job in the Justice Department by Roy Cohn, his right-wing, bigoted mentor and friend. But Harper, who is addicted to Valium and suffers anxiety and hallucinations, does not want to move to Washington.
The two couples' fates quickly become intertwined: Joe stumbles upon Louis crying in the bathroom of the courthouse where he works, and they strike up an unlikely friendship based in part on Louis's suspicion that Joe is gay. Harper and Prior also meet, in a fantastical mutual dream sequence in which Prior, operating on the "threshold of revelation," reveals to Harper that her husband is a closeted homosexual. Harper confronts Joe, who denies it but says he has struggled inwardly with the issue. Roy receives a different kind of surprise: At an appointment with his doctor Henry, he learns that he too has been diagnosed with AIDS. But Roy, who considers gay men weak and ineffectual, thunders that he has nothing in common with them—AIDS is a disease of homosexuals, and asserts that he has "liver cancer." Henry, disgusted, urges him to use his clout to obtain an experimental AIDS drug.
Prior's illness and Harper's terrors both grow worse. Louis strays from Prior's bedside to seek anonymous sex in Central Park at night. Fortunately, Prior has a more reliable caretaker in Belize, an ex-drag queen and dear friend. Prior confesses to Belize that he has been hearing a wonderful and mysterious voice; Belize is skeptical, but once he leaves we hear the voice speak to Prior, telling him she is a messenger who will soon arrive for him. As the days pass, Louis and Joe grow closer and the sexual tinge in their banter grows more and more obvious. Finally, Joe drunkenly telephones his mother Hannah in Salt Lake City to tell her that he is a homosexual, but Hannah tells him he is being ridiculous. Nonetheless, she makes plans to sell her house and come to New York to put things right. In a tense and climactic scene, Joe tells Harper about his feelings, and she screams at him to leave, while simultaneously Louis tells Prior he is moving out.
The disconsolate Prior is awakened one night by the ghosts of two ancestors who tell him they have come to prepare the way for the unseen messenger. Tormented by such supernatural appearances and by his anguish over Louis, Prior becomes increasingly desperate. Joe, equally distraught in his own way, tells Roy he cannot accept his offer; Roy explodes at him and calls him a "sissy." He then tells Joe about his greatest achievement, illegally intervening in the espionage trial of Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s and guaranteeing her execution. Joe is shocked by Roy's lack of ethics. When Joe leaves, the ghost of Ethel herself appears, having come to witness Roy's last days on earth. In the climax of Part One, Joe follows Louis to the park, then accompanies him home for sex, while Prior's prophetic visions culminate in the appearance of an imposing and beautiful Angel who crashes through the roof of his apartment and proclaims, "The Great Work begins."
From: http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/angels/summary.html
THE AUTHOR:
Tony Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an award-winning American playwright most famous for his play Angels in America, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is also co-author, along with Eric Roth, of the screenplay of the 2005 film Munich, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned Kushner (along with Roth) an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
He was born to a Jewish family in Manhattan. His parents, William Kushner and Sylvia (Deutscher) Kushner, both classically trained musicians, moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, the seat of Calcasieu Parish, shortly after his birth. During high school Kushner had a reputation in policy debate, at one point going to a camp, and making it to the final rounds. Kushner moved to New York in 1974 to begin his undergraduate college education at Columbia University, where he completed a B.A. in Medieval Studies [1] in 1978. He studied directing at New York University's Graduate School, from which he was graduated in 1984. During graduate school, he spent the summers of 1978-1981 directing both early original works (Masque of Owls and Incidents and Occurrences During the Travels of the Tailor Max) and Shakespearean plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest) for the children attending the Governor's Program for Gifted Children (GPGC) in his home town of Lake Charles, Louisiana. In 2008, he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from SUNY Purchase College.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Kushner
PRODUCTION HISTORY AND REVIEWS:
Broadway debut at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993
Citizens Theater, Glasgow, UK, May 7th through the 12th 2007
To do justice to such an extraordinary play requires outstanding performances, with each actor playing up to seven different roles. Setting aside the frustrating blip of a very variable accent from Greg Hicks as Roy Cohn, a New York lawyer, this eight-strong cast is rock-solid. Kirsty Bushell, Mark Emerson, Ann Mitchell and the mesmerizing Golda Rosheuvel are particularly divine. Shona Craven
Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Oct 1st 1996 through March 30, 1997: Its strength is its ability to place large, universal themes in the context of a strong contemporary narrative; KATE TAYLOR
Balliwick Rep., Chicago, IL, March 1st through April 30th 2006:
Villanova University (Vasey Hall), Villanaova, PA, Feb. 14th through the 23rd: Angels in America is a well-written, often lyrical work of sharply etched scenes of personal revelation and conflict, intertwined with humorous yet pertinent dreams and hallucinations. Douglas J. Keating
Van Wezel Hall, Sarasota, Florida, April 26, 1995: At a time when theater was in danger of becoming irrelevant as a vehicle for serious thought, the playwright created a world onstage that mirrored the complexities of modern American life. JOHN FLEMING
Kilgore Junior College, Kilgore, TX, November, 1999
As you can see this show has seen productions from the very large to the local regional junior college. It continues to be produced by a menagerie of production companies from the armature to the professional, on tour and in repertoire.
CLASSROOM EXERCISE
“1985”
Materials Needed: It is strongly suggested that your students read the script together or individually before you come see the production. Your students will need access to the internet or a library. Students will need writing materials or a computer to write their answers.
Exercise: Have the students answer the following questions in short answer form. After the students have completed the questions have a round-table style discussion to open their minds to the issues addressed in “Angels in America”.
Questions:
1. A very powerful political figure, Roy Cohn, is portrayed in a very negative light in this play. Who was Roy Cohn? Is his portrayal as a malevolent, hate monger accurate?
2. What famous people of the 1980’s contracted or died from HIV from 1980 to 1989?
3. In the show there are depictions of anonymous sex. Was there a homosexual sub-culture in 1985 that allowed for this type of activity? How and where did these actions take place? What was the view on these activities by the general public?
4. A character in the play has Kaposi sarcoma. What is this and who does it affect?
5. Have the views on homosexuality changed from the time when the play takes place? If so, How?
QUESTION AND ANSWER SECTION
There will be a question and answer session with the director, cast, and production team after the show. Here are five questions that will be included in the session.
1. Is this a social commentary or just another play?
2. The script gives very few details about setting other than places. How did you decide what these places would look like?
3. Why did you do the “sex in the park” scene the way that you did?
4. The subtitle of the show is “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes”; did this affect any of your decisions regarding the staging and direction of the play?
5. How has this play affected each of you in your professional and persona life?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Produciton Photos
Boston Theatre Works, Boston, MA2008
Co-directors: Jason Southerland and Nancy Curran
Set Designer: Laura C. McPherson
Sound Design: Nathan Leigh
Lighting Designer: John Malinowski
Costume Designer: Rachel Padula Shufelt
Wing Designer: James Williston
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/0c7014ef65_29ange2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/view.bg%3Farticleid%3D1069606&h=275&w=315&sz=73&hl=en&start=67&um=1&tbnid=LIg9SOdwtrlBCM:&tbnh=102&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3DAngels%2Bin%2Bamerica%2Btheater%2Bmillenium%26start%3D54%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLD_en___US222%26sa%3DN
Onstage Atlanta, Atlanta, GA2004
Director: Scott Rousseau
Lighting Designer: John David Williams
http://www.onstageatlanta.com/a_pastseasons.htm
Balliwick Rep., Chicago, IL2006
Set Design By Sean Graney
Light Design By Jared Moore
Sound Design By Michael Griggs & Mikhail Fiksel
http://chicagocritic.com/html/angels_in_america_part_i__ii.html
The Academy of Music at Hamilton High School, L.A., California2007
Staff Director/Designer
http://www.lenswoman.com/img/news/angels.jpg
UMASS Amherst, Amherst, MA2004
Director: M. Honatke Miller
Set Design: Miguel Romero
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Reviews
Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
Directed by Sean Graney
Produced by the-hypocrites in association with
Graney’s Angels In America is powerful, profound and stunning---a true work of theatrical magic.
I consider Angels In America (both parts) as the ‘greatest’ play(s) of the last half of the 20th Century. Tony Kushner’s masterwork won the Tony Award in 1993 & 94, the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 and almost every theatrical award offered. This brilliant, complex, benumbing political drama is a true epic as it scales time, space while including three storylines with several dozen characters. The play deals with AIDS, homosexuality in the mid 1980’s when personal identity became muddled as being Jewish, a Mormon or a Wasp or being gay or black can either divide us or be the basis of a strong sense of community.
This highly charged drama rivets us with its scathing attack not only on right-wing conservative Republicans but also admonishes the left-wing liberals for being much too docile. Kushner hates to see us treading water politically when we keep the equilibrium and preserve the past. Radical change is needed and it begins with action toward change in personal identity and change in our view of what makes our society and our wider community. Angels In America may seem a bleak play but on second thought it is about hope and Kushner offers a dose of political optimism.
Director Sean Graney, while stead-fast to Tony Kushner’s vision, has mounted an easy to follow, quickly paced production of a complex, dense work that has baffled many a director. Graney got it right here as he uses effectively two video screens and square banks of light that change colors for each scene (lighting design by Jared Moore) together with mood setting sound (designed by Michael Griggs & Mikhail Fiksel) that set the tones magnificently. The ending sounds effects were chilling and breathtaking. Kudos to the production staff for fine work.
You’d be hard pressed to find a finer cast than Graney has assembled for this non-Equity production.
This amazing show is so engrossing, so filled with rich lyrical language and emotional performances that you’ll be on the edge of your seat totally transfixed with this epic drama. Listen to the text, see both parts separately then see them on the same day to get the complete message of this tremendous play. Kushner has much to say and Graney’s production gives it clarity with a steady mounting dramatic tension that engages us throughout.
This is excellent theatre! For only $25 or $40 for both shows, you’ll not find a finer theatre value. I can’t wait for Part II: Perestroika. Thanks, Sean for a terrific night of theatre.
Not To Be Missed
Date Reviewed March 5, 2006
The Philadelphia Inquirer
FEBRUARY 14, 1997 Friday SF EDITION
DARK VIEW OF REAGAN-ERA U.S. IN 'MILLENNIUM APPROACHES'BYLINE: Douglas J. Keating, INQUIRER THEATER CRITICSECTION: FEATURES WEEKEND; Pg. 46
Before the play begins, the audience at the Villanova University production of "Millennium Approaches," Part 1 of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, has become familiar with the massive set filling the curtainless stage. It's a commanding creation that thereafter never leaves the theatergoer's consciousness, but ultimately does not fully serve the play.
David P. Gordon's imaginative design suggests a ruined government building. In the background are large stone steps marred by a gaping hole. In the foreground are large slabs of uneven concrete that appear to have been shifted by some superior force of war or nature. Coupled with Jerold R. Forsyth's cool, harsh lighting, the production design portends the millennial destruction that is on the minds of some of the characters.
It also serves as a vivid, eloquent metaphor for the play's bleak view of America in the Reagan years of the mid-'80s - a time when the full awfulness of the AIDS epidemic was becoming known and such discoveries as the hole in the ozone layer presaged environmental destruction.
The play's not-very-coherent, if deeply felt, vision of America is strongly colored by Kushner's description of Angels in America as "a gay fantasia on national themes."
While not everyone will agree with Kushner's dark perspective on the nation, the personal concerns of Angels in America are something everyone can relate to. This is a very human play, peopled with passionate characters, and Gordon's hard-edged set - a design that turns one raised concrete slab into a desk or table, and another into a bed - tends to play against these aspects.
The Villanova cast especially could use a set more amenable to the human concerns of the play. These are demanding, difficult roles for graduate-student actors of limited experience to undertake. Pushed by directors Harriet Power and James Christy, they stretch to the full extent of their talents and abilities, and they do an admirable job. Still, as the touring version of the show that played Philadelphia last season demonstrated, the characterizations need to be better developed and the emotional connections - which are, perhaps, hampered by the cool, dark atmosphere of the set - more strongly felt.
Angels in America is a well-written, often lyrical work of sharply etched scenes of personal revelation and conflict, intertwined with humorous yet pertinent dreams and hallucinations. The Villanova production may not fully realize the play's humanity and poignance, but under the sure, comprehending direction of Power and Christy, the production compels attention with its vivid scenes and high sense of theatricality. The angel descending from heaven at the end of the play, a sure test of inventive theatricality, is marvelously handled.
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
April 28, 1995, Friday, City Edition
'Angels' on the markBYLINE: JOHN FLEMINGSECTION: TAMPA BAY AND STATE; THEATER REVIEW; Entertainment
DATELINE: SARASOTA Tony Kushner achieved a great thing with his two-part epic, Angels in America.
At a time when theater was in danger of becoming irrelevant as a vehicle for serious thought, the playwright created a world onstage that mirrored the complexities of modern American life.
Wednesday, both parts were performed by the national touring company, directed by Michael Mayer, at Van Wezel Hall.
Part 1, Millennium Approaches, was in the afternoon, and then there was a break followed by The play expands from Prior's dire predicament to cover social, sexual and political issues in daring, even dangerous fashion.
In some ways, it is a testament to the vitality of U.S. society that such an adventurous work - subtitled A gay fantasia on national themes - is a success. In other ways, it is a disgrace that it took so long for a play about AIDS to gain acceptance by a wide audience.
Kushner's writing has an aphoristic virtuosity that alternates profundity and shtick in dizzy profusion.
Angels in America is like a sprawling opera. However, unlike opera, in which the arias count the most, Kushner's play is best in the dramatic counterparts of duets and quartets, reflecting his focus on relationships. The portrayal of Prior and his lover who walks out, Louis Ironson (Peter Birkenhead), is comic and fearful and angry by turns, a masterful depiction of a gay couple torn apart by AIDS.
The touring show demonstrates that less can be a lot more, with pared-down production values that express the playwright's intent better than a costlier staging. On Broadway, Harper's hallucinatory trip to Antarctica had machine-driven plastic icebergs. On the road, her Antarctica is a bolt of shimmering white silk, evocatively lighted, and it works like a dream.
The one place where scenic designer Paul Gallo pulls out all the stops is in a vision of heaven that resembles a gloriously funky flea market.
It would be wrong to say Angels in America is seven-hours-plus of perfection. Political correctness hurts the play, as in the one-dimensionally virtuous black drag queen Belize (Reg Flowers). Even Prior occasionally shows his unattractive side, but Belize is a saint from beginning to end.
The Angel's utterances tend toward mumbo-jumbo, and Prior's appearance before the Continental Principalities, a group of angels, is like a bad science-fiction movie. The play's insider political references may date badly. Perestroika's Epilogue speech, delivered by Prior, is more than a little sentimental.
But Angels in America has the feel of something durable in this first-rate production. From a literary standpoint alone, the play is comparable to other important advances in fiction since the 1960s.
Like the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other Latin American novelists, Kushner's script stretches the boundaries of extravagance on stage and has a fluid sense of time and place. The frank language and male nudity does for gay sex what John Updike's novels did for sex in the suburbs.
Angels in America returns to the bay area Dec. 15-17 at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
Copyright 1995 Times Publishing Company
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 1, 1996 Tuesday
THEATRE REVIEW ANGELS IN AMERICABYLINE: BY KATE TAYLOR Directed by Bob BakerSECTION: THE ARTS: THEATRE; Pg. DATELINE: Toronto
Written by Tony Kushner Starring David Storch, Steve Cumyn Alex Poch-Goldin, Karen Hines and Tom Wood Rating: ****
Angels mixes poetry, comedy in epic sweep
CANADIAN Stage artistic director Bob Baker has said he is obsessed with Angels in America. He beat out commercial producer David Mirvish for the Toronto rights to the prize-winning play, negotiating for four years with the playwright's agent, who wouldn't sign a deal until the broadway run was over. But if Baker is in love with the much-heralded Angels, he is not blind to its faults. His solid production of Part One: Milennium Approaches, which opened last night at Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street space, finesses its more difficult passages, presenting Angels in a strong light.
Tony Kushner's play is hugely ambitious and very long -- Part One runs 3½ hours followed by an equally lengthy Part Two, which Canadian Stage opens in November. It ranges from moments of grand speechifying to passages of cramped, television-style dialogue, daring to be both poetic and ironic about its own poetry. It offers scenes of hard realism and comic surrealism, and its characters include not only fictional people but also historical figures, ghosts and angels.
Its strength is its ability to place large, universal themes in the context of a strong contemporary narrative; its weaknesses include some unnecessary scenes, some underdeveloped themes and, most of all, some underdeveloped characters. A weak production of Angels, like the Manitoba Theatre Centre's Canadian première last January, can leave you wondering what all the fuss is about. A good one should make you feel admiration and gratitude for Kushner, the playwright who has reintroduced epic scale into humanist drama.
Set in New York in 1985-86, Part One follows two couples, one gay, the other nominally straight. These contemporary figures are placed in a large historical and spiritual context.
Baker stages this story simply, moving small scenes quickly around a basic black set designed by Leslie Frankish to a hard and fast score composed by Don Horsburgh. Rather than essay an overwrought, expressionist style, which would be one possible approach to this sprawling material, Baker tones down the extremes of the play, bringing them together in the middle. For example, Harper's hallucinatory visit to Antarctica is cleverly but very plainly staged using a huge white sheet and blinding white light. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum, Baker tactfully separates Louis and a leather queen he has picked up, placing them on either side of the stage for the anal sex scene that is the one moment in Angels one could call gratuitous.
Baker has also drawn strong, naturalistic performances from his cast, further unifying the piece. Patricia Hamilton, for example, neatly manages both Joe's mother Hannah, Ethel Rosenberg and several male parts, bringing a fair degree of realism to Kushner's tough decision to use drag casting in some minor roles. Similarly, as the hate-spewing, obscenity-spouting, telephone-clutching Roy Cohn, Tom Wood is funny, but he doesn't allow his twitchy version of the man to descend to comic caricature. Roy is Kushner's denunciation of a right-wing, me-first philosophy and Wood certainly recognizes that an extreme interpretation would let the audience pass over the politics to laugh at a joke.
The other characters' political and social concerns are skillfully fitted into the story but Harper's fear of environmental collapse, like the appearance of a bag lady toward the end of the play, sounds like Kushner ticking issues off a very trendy list (AIDS, homelessness, the ozone layer . . .).
As the play's Everyman figure, Prior is also short on character. Steve Cumyn is awfully healthy looking for the role, but this actually adds both physical and psychological power to the part. Cumyn's Prior is real enough that we start to see ourselves in this frightened figure struggling toward hope when he's actually much better at the cynical quip. That this tidy production can achieve such a moment of recognition is a testament to the straightforward approach Baker maintains right through to the arrival of a cheerfully baroque angel.
The Times (London)
May 7, 2007, Monday
Angels in AmericaBYLINE: Shona CravenSECTION: FEATURES; Times2; Pg.
Theatre. Angels in America. Citizens, Glasgow. ****
Fifteen years have passed since Tony Kushner completed Angels in America, his devastating, Pulitzer prize-winning epic about the Aids explosion of the 1980s.
The play was already a period piece by the time an acclaimed HBO film adaptation was screened in 2003; the first of its two parts is titled Millennium Approaches.
Theatregoers may no longer be shocked by scenes involving gay sex, or the horrific reality of an illness that is now discussed freely and compassionately, but Daniel Kramer's frequently gut-wrenching co-production for Citizens Theatre Company, Headlong Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith feels fresh and vital, and conveys the physical and emotional suffering of its characters with an intensity that is at times almost overwhelming.
Seven hours might sound like an indulgent running time for a play that essentially charts the breakdown of two relationships, but Kushner's fiercely intelligent, no-holds-barred discussion of love and religion, politics and race is an experience to savour. Ultimately optimistic and life-affirming, as well as sublimely witty, this is for people who like to stay up into the small hours putting the world to rights.
The world may have progressed from regarding Aids as a gay plague, but many of the other complex issues raised -racism, homophobia, drug addiction and religious oppression -are as pertinent as ever. Just witness last year's gleefully documented downfall of the closeted congressman (and sometime Scientology fan) Mark Foley, or the recent free-speech debate triggered by the sacking of the racist radio host Don Imus.
Technically dazzling and beautifully designed by Soutra Gilmour, this isn't just a wonderful production, it's a genuinely thrilling theatrical experience. The stage becomes littered with detritus, and Carolyn Downing's memorable soundtrack combines pop music, rumbling thunder and the haunting screech of a winged intruder.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Part 2 (Perestroika) contains fewer jaw-dropping moments, but it is no less captivating. Some of the finest lines are saved until last, as death, forgiveness and recovery allow the characters to disentangle their respective life stories.
To do justice to such an extraordinary play requires outstanding performances, with each actor playing up to seven different roles. Setting aside the frustrating blip of a very variable accent from Greg Hicks as Roy Cohn, a New York lawyer, this eight-strong cast is rock-solid. Kirsty Bushell, Mark Emerson, Ann Mitchell and the mesmerising Golda Rosheuvel are particularly divine.
Directed by Sean Graney
Produced by the-hypocrites in association with
Graney’s Angels In America is powerful, profound and stunning---a true work of theatrical magic.
I consider Angels In America (both parts) as the ‘greatest’ play(s) of the last half of the 20th Century. Tony Kushner’s masterwork won the Tony Award in 1993 & 94, the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 and almost every theatrical award offered. This brilliant, complex, benumbing political drama is a true epic as it scales time, space while including three storylines with several dozen characters. The play deals with AIDS, homosexuality in the mid 1980’s when personal identity became muddled as being Jewish, a Mormon or a Wasp or being gay or black can either divide us or be the basis of a strong sense of community.
This highly charged drama rivets us with its scathing attack not only on right-wing conservative Republicans but also admonishes the left-wing liberals for being much too docile. Kushner hates to see us treading water politically when we keep the equilibrium and preserve the past. Radical change is needed and it begins with action toward change in personal identity and change in our view of what makes our society and our wider community. Angels In America may seem a bleak play but on second thought it is about hope and Kushner offers a dose of political optimism.
Director Sean Graney, while stead-fast to Tony Kushner’s vision, has mounted an easy to follow, quickly paced production of a complex, dense work that has baffled many a director. Graney got it right here as he uses effectively two video screens and square banks of light that change colors for each scene (lighting design by Jared Moore) together with mood setting sound (designed by Michael Griggs & Mikhail Fiksel) that set the tones magnificently. The ending sounds effects were chilling and breathtaking. Kudos to the production staff for fine work.
You’d be hard pressed to find a finer cast than Graney has assembled for this non-Equity production.
This amazing show is so engrossing, so filled with rich lyrical language and emotional performances that you’ll be on the edge of your seat totally transfixed with this epic drama. Listen to the text, see both parts separately then see them on the same day to get the complete message of this tremendous play. Kushner has much to say and Graney’s production gives it clarity with a steady mounting dramatic tension that engages us throughout.
This is excellent theatre! For only $25 or $40 for both shows, you’ll not find a finer theatre value. I can’t wait for Part II: Perestroika. Thanks, Sean for a terrific night of theatre.
Not To Be Missed
Date Reviewed March 5, 2006
The Philadelphia Inquirer
FEBRUARY 14, 1997 Friday SF EDITION
DARK VIEW OF REAGAN-ERA U.S. IN 'MILLENNIUM APPROACHES'BYLINE: Douglas J. Keating, INQUIRER THEATER CRITICSECTION: FEATURES WEEKEND; Pg. 46
Before the play begins, the audience at the Villanova University production of "Millennium Approaches," Part 1 of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, has become familiar with the massive set filling the curtainless stage. It's a commanding creation that thereafter never leaves the theatergoer's consciousness, but ultimately does not fully serve the play.
David P. Gordon's imaginative design suggests a ruined government building. In the background are large stone steps marred by a gaping hole. In the foreground are large slabs of uneven concrete that appear to have been shifted by some superior force of war or nature. Coupled with Jerold R. Forsyth's cool, harsh lighting, the production design portends the millennial destruction that is on the minds of some of the characters.
It also serves as a vivid, eloquent metaphor for the play's bleak view of America in the Reagan years of the mid-'80s - a time when the full awfulness of the AIDS epidemic was becoming known and such discoveries as the hole in the ozone layer presaged environmental destruction.
The play's not-very-coherent, if deeply felt, vision of America is strongly colored by Kushner's description of Angels in America as "a gay fantasia on national themes."
While not everyone will agree with Kushner's dark perspective on the nation, the personal concerns of Angels in America are something everyone can relate to. This is a very human play, peopled with passionate characters, and Gordon's hard-edged set - a design that turns one raised concrete slab into a desk or table, and another into a bed - tends to play against these aspects.
The Villanova cast especially could use a set more amenable to the human concerns of the play. These are demanding, difficult roles for graduate-student actors of limited experience to undertake. Pushed by directors Harriet Power and James Christy, they stretch to the full extent of their talents and abilities, and they do an admirable job. Still, as the touring version of the show that played Philadelphia last season demonstrated, the characterizations need to be better developed and the emotional connections - which are, perhaps, hampered by the cool, dark atmosphere of the set - more strongly felt.
Angels in America is a well-written, often lyrical work of sharply etched scenes of personal revelation and conflict, intertwined with humorous yet pertinent dreams and hallucinations. The Villanova production may not fully realize the play's humanity and poignance, but under the sure, comprehending direction of Power and Christy, the production compels attention with its vivid scenes and high sense of theatricality. The angel descending from heaven at the end of the play, a sure test of inventive theatricality, is marvelously handled.
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
April 28, 1995, Friday, City Edition
'Angels' on the markBYLINE: JOHN FLEMINGSECTION: TAMPA BAY AND STATE; THEATER REVIEW; Entertainment
DATELINE: SARASOTA Tony Kushner achieved a great thing with his two-part epic, Angels in America.
At a time when theater was in danger of becoming irrelevant as a vehicle for serious thought, the playwright created a world onstage that mirrored the complexities of modern American life.
Wednesday, both parts were performed by the national touring company, directed by Michael Mayer, at Van Wezel Hall.
Part 1, Millennium Approaches, was in the afternoon, and then there was a break followed by The play expands from Prior's dire predicament to cover social, sexual and political issues in daring, even dangerous fashion.
In some ways, it is a testament to the vitality of U.S. society that such an adventurous work - subtitled A gay fantasia on national themes - is a success. In other ways, it is a disgrace that it took so long for a play about AIDS to gain acceptance by a wide audience.
Kushner's writing has an aphoristic virtuosity that alternates profundity and shtick in dizzy profusion.
Angels in America is like a sprawling opera. However, unlike opera, in which the arias count the most, Kushner's play is best in the dramatic counterparts of duets and quartets, reflecting his focus on relationships. The portrayal of Prior and his lover who walks out, Louis Ironson (Peter Birkenhead), is comic and fearful and angry by turns, a masterful depiction of a gay couple torn apart by AIDS.
The touring show demonstrates that less can be a lot more, with pared-down production values that express the playwright's intent better than a costlier staging. On Broadway, Harper's hallucinatory trip to Antarctica had machine-driven plastic icebergs. On the road, her Antarctica is a bolt of shimmering white silk, evocatively lighted, and it works like a dream.
The one place where scenic designer Paul Gallo pulls out all the stops is in a vision of heaven that resembles a gloriously funky flea market.
It would be wrong to say Angels in America is seven-hours-plus of perfection. Political correctness hurts the play, as in the one-dimensionally virtuous black drag queen Belize (Reg Flowers). Even Prior occasionally shows his unattractive side, but Belize is a saint from beginning to end.
The Angel's utterances tend toward mumbo-jumbo, and Prior's appearance before the Continental Principalities, a group of angels, is like a bad science-fiction movie. The play's insider political references may date badly. Perestroika's Epilogue speech, delivered by Prior, is more than a little sentimental.
But Angels in America has the feel of something durable in this first-rate production. From a literary standpoint alone, the play is comparable to other important advances in fiction since the 1960s.
Like the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other Latin American novelists, Kushner's script stretches the boundaries of extravagance on stage and has a fluid sense of time and place. The frank language and male nudity does for gay sex what John Updike's novels did for sex in the suburbs.
Angels in America returns to the bay area Dec. 15-17 at Ruth Eckerd Hall.
Copyright 1995 Times Publishing Company
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
October 1, 1996 Tuesday
THEATRE REVIEW ANGELS IN AMERICABYLINE: BY KATE TAYLOR Directed by Bob BakerSECTION: THE ARTS: THEATRE; Pg. DATELINE: Toronto
Written by Tony Kushner Starring David Storch, Steve Cumyn Alex Poch-Goldin, Karen Hines and Tom Wood Rating: ****
Angels mixes poetry, comedy in epic sweep
CANADIAN Stage artistic director Bob Baker has said he is obsessed with Angels in America. He beat out commercial producer David Mirvish for the Toronto rights to the prize-winning play, negotiating for four years with the playwright's agent, who wouldn't sign a deal until the broadway run was over. But if Baker is in love with the much-heralded Angels, he is not blind to its faults. His solid production of Part One: Milennium Approaches, which opened last night at Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street space, finesses its more difficult passages, presenting Angels in a strong light.
Tony Kushner's play is hugely ambitious and very long -- Part One runs 3½ hours followed by an equally lengthy Part Two, which Canadian Stage opens in November. It ranges from moments of grand speechifying to passages of cramped, television-style dialogue, daring to be both poetic and ironic about its own poetry. It offers scenes of hard realism and comic surrealism, and its characters include not only fictional people but also historical figures, ghosts and angels.
Its strength is its ability to place large, universal themes in the context of a strong contemporary narrative; its weaknesses include some unnecessary scenes, some underdeveloped themes and, most of all, some underdeveloped characters. A weak production of Angels, like the Manitoba Theatre Centre's Canadian première last January, can leave you wondering what all the fuss is about. A good one should make you feel admiration and gratitude for Kushner, the playwright who has reintroduced epic scale into humanist drama.
Set in New York in 1985-86, Part One follows two couples, one gay, the other nominally straight. These contemporary figures are placed in a large historical and spiritual context.
Baker stages this story simply, moving small scenes quickly around a basic black set designed by Leslie Frankish to a hard and fast score composed by Don Horsburgh. Rather than essay an overwrought, expressionist style, which would be one possible approach to this sprawling material, Baker tones down the extremes of the play, bringing them together in the middle. For example, Harper's hallucinatory visit to Antarctica is cleverly but very plainly staged using a huge white sheet and blinding white light. At the other end of the stylistic spectrum, Baker tactfully separates Louis and a leather queen he has picked up, placing them on either side of the stage for the anal sex scene that is the one moment in Angels one could call gratuitous.
Baker has also drawn strong, naturalistic performances from his cast, further unifying the piece. Patricia Hamilton, for example, neatly manages both Joe's mother Hannah, Ethel Rosenberg and several male parts, bringing a fair degree of realism to Kushner's tough decision to use drag casting in some minor roles. Similarly, as the hate-spewing, obscenity-spouting, telephone-clutching Roy Cohn, Tom Wood is funny, but he doesn't allow his twitchy version of the man to descend to comic caricature. Roy is Kushner's denunciation of a right-wing, me-first philosophy and Wood certainly recognizes that an extreme interpretation would let the audience pass over the politics to laugh at a joke.
The other characters' political and social concerns are skillfully fitted into the story but Harper's fear of environmental collapse, like the appearance of a bag lady toward the end of the play, sounds like Kushner ticking issues off a very trendy list (AIDS, homelessness, the ozone layer . . .).
As the play's Everyman figure, Prior is also short on character. Steve Cumyn is awfully healthy looking for the role, but this actually adds both physical and psychological power to the part. Cumyn's Prior is real enough that we start to see ourselves in this frightened figure struggling toward hope when he's actually much better at the cynical quip. That this tidy production can achieve such a moment of recognition is a testament to the straightforward approach Baker maintains right through to the arrival of a cheerfully baroque angel.
The Times (London)
May 7, 2007, Monday
Angels in AmericaBYLINE: Shona CravenSECTION: FEATURES; Times2; Pg.
Theatre. Angels in America. Citizens, Glasgow. ****
Fifteen years have passed since Tony Kushner completed Angels in America, his devastating, Pulitzer prize-winning epic about the Aids explosion of the 1980s.
The play was already a period piece by the time an acclaimed HBO film adaptation was screened in 2003; the first of its two parts is titled Millennium Approaches.
Theatregoers may no longer be shocked by scenes involving gay sex, or the horrific reality of an illness that is now discussed freely and compassionately, but Daniel Kramer's frequently gut-wrenching co-production for Citizens Theatre Company, Headlong Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith feels fresh and vital, and conveys the physical and emotional suffering of its characters with an intensity that is at times almost overwhelming.
Seven hours might sound like an indulgent running time for a play that essentially charts the breakdown of two relationships, but Kushner's fiercely intelligent, no-holds-barred discussion of love and religion, politics and race is an experience to savour. Ultimately optimistic and life-affirming, as well as sublimely witty, this is for people who like to stay up into the small hours putting the world to rights.
The world may have progressed from regarding Aids as a gay plague, but many of the other complex issues raised -racism, homophobia, drug addiction and religious oppression -are as pertinent as ever. Just witness last year's gleefully documented downfall of the closeted congressman (and sometime Scientology fan) Mark Foley, or the recent free-speech debate triggered by the sacking of the racist radio host Don Imus.
Technically dazzling and beautifully designed by Soutra Gilmour, this isn't just a wonderful production, it's a genuinely thrilling theatrical experience. The stage becomes littered with detritus, and Carolyn Downing's memorable soundtrack combines pop music, rumbling thunder and the haunting screech of a winged intruder.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Part 2 (Perestroika) contains fewer jaw-dropping moments, but it is no less captivating. Some of the finest lines are saved until last, as death, forgiveness and recovery allow the characters to disentangle their respective life stories.
To do justice to such an extraordinary play requires outstanding performances, with each actor playing up to seven different roles. Setting aside the frustrating blip of a very variable accent from Greg Hicks as Roy Cohn, a New York lawyer, this eight-strong cast is rock-solid. Kirsty Bushell, Mark Emerson, Ann Mitchell and the mesmerising Golda Rosheuvel are particularly divine.
Productions of "Angels In America"
Van Wezel Hall, Sarasota, Florida
April 26, 1995
Produced by the National Touring Company
Directd by Michael Mayer
Set Design by Paul Gallo
Roy Cohn (Jonathan Hadary)
Hannah Pitt, Rabbi (Barbara Robertson)
Angel (Carolyn Swift)
Kate Goehring (Harper Pitt)
Louis Ironson (Peter Birkenhead)
Joe Pitt (Philip Earl Johnson)
Harper Pitt (Kate Goehring)
This production had scaled down production values such as Harper's "trip" to antartica being a bolt of white silk that was lit very artisticaly as opposed to the motorized icebergs on broadway.
Villanova University (Vasey Hall), Villanaova, PA
Feb. 14th through the 23rd
Produced by Villanova University
Directed by Harriet Power and James Christy
Set Desigh by David P. Gordon
Lighting Design Jerold R. Forsyth
Costume Design by Janus Stefanowicz
Cast:
Ray Saraceni
Steven McChesney
Laurie Norton
Rob Rosiello
Louis Balestra
Maureen Torsney-Weir
John R. Petrie
Sarah Schmittinger
This production had a set that was very large. It represented a broken down marble and limestone government building.
Balliwick Rep., Chicago, IL
March 1st through April 30th 2006
Produced by The Hypocrites theater in association with Balliwick Rep.
Directed By Sean Graney
Set Design By Sean Graney
Light Design By Jared Moore
Sound Design By Michael Griggs & Mikhail Fiksel
CAST
Prior Walter (Scott Bradley)
Louis Ironson (Steve Wilson)
Joe Pitt (JB Waterman)
Harper (Mechelle Moe)
Roy Cohn (Kurt Ehrmann)
Belize (Cliff London)
Hannah (Donna McGough)
This production, in my opinion, is characterized not by the casting but by the production staff. There are lighting and sound designers, however the director designed the set with more ability and aplomb than in most other shows.
Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Oct 1st 1996 through March 30, 1997
Produced by Canadian Stage
Director Bob Baker
Set Design By Leslie Frankish
Score Composed by Don Horsburgh
David Storch (Joe Pitt)
Steve Cumyn (Prior)
Alex Poch-Goldin (Louis)
Karen Hines (Harper)
Tom Wood (Roy Cohn)
Patricia Hamilton (Hannah)
One of the most interesting points of this produciton is that there was not a sound designer but an original score was composed for the show by Don Horsburgh.
Citizens Theater, Glasgow, UK
May 7th through the 12th 2007
Co-Produced by Citizens Theatre Company, Headlong Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith
Directed by Daniel Kramer
Set Design By Soutra Gilmour
Sound Design by Carolyn Downing
Greg Hicks as Roy Cohn
Kirsty Bushell
Mark Emerson
Ann Mitchell
Golda Rosheuvel
This production in London, as others, is being produced almost fifteen years after the play was written in a much different time and climate in regards to the subject matter of the script. Throughout the show the stage becomes more and more littered with detrius. This is a very interesting concept to me.
April 26, 1995
Produced by the National Touring Company
Directd by Michael Mayer
Set Design by Paul Gallo
Roy Cohn (Jonathan Hadary)
Hannah Pitt, Rabbi (Barbara Robertson)
Angel (Carolyn Swift)
Kate Goehring (Harper Pitt)
Louis Ironson (Peter Birkenhead)
Joe Pitt (Philip Earl Johnson)
Harper Pitt (Kate Goehring)
This production had scaled down production values such as Harper's "trip" to antartica being a bolt of white silk that was lit very artisticaly as opposed to the motorized icebergs on broadway.
Villanova University (Vasey Hall), Villanaova, PA
Feb. 14th through the 23rd
Produced by Villanova University
Directed by Harriet Power and James Christy
Set Desigh by David P. Gordon
Lighting Design Jerold R. Forsyth
Costume Design by Janus Stefanowicz
Cast:
Ray Saraceni
Steven McChesney
Laurie Norton
Rob Rosiello
Louis Balestra
Maureen Torsney-Weir
John R. Petrie
Sarah Schmittinger
This production had a set that was very large. It represented a broken down marble and limestone government building.
Balliwick Rep., Chicago, IL
March 1st through April 30th 2006
Produced by The Hypocrites theater in association with Balliwick Rep.
Directed By Sean Graney
Set Design By Sean Graney
Light Design By Jared Moore
Sound Design By Michael Griggs & Mikhail Fiksel
CAST
Prior Walter (Scott Bradley)
Louis Ironson (Steve Wilson)
Joe Pitt (JB Waterman)
Harper (Mechelle Moe)
Roy Cohn (Kurt Ehrmann)
Belize (Cliff London)
Hannah (Donna McGough)
This production, in my opinion, is characterized not by the casting but by the production staff. There are lighting and sound designers, however the director designed the set with more ability and aplomb than in most other shows.
Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Oct 1st 1996 through March 30, 1997
Produced by Canadian Stage
Director Bob Baker
Set Design By Leslie Frankish
Score Composed by Don Horsburgh
David Storch (Joe Pitt)
Steve Cumyn (Prior)
Alex Poch-Goldin (Louis)
Karen Hines (Harper)
Tom Wood (Roy Cohn)
Patricia Hamilton (Hannah)
One of the most interesting points of this produciton is that there was not a sound designer but an original score was composed for the show by Don Horsburgh.
Citizens Theater, Glasgow, UK
May 7th through the 12th 2007
Co-Produced by Citizens Theatre Company, Headlong Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith
Directed by Daniel Kramer
Set Design By Soutra Gilmour
Sound Design by Carolyn Downing
Greg Hicks as Roy Cohn
Kirsty Bushell
Mark Emerson
Ann Mitchell
Golda Rosheuvel
This production in London, as others, is being produced almost fifteen years after the play was written in a much different time and climate in regards to the subject matter of the script. Throughout the show the stage becomes more and more littered with detrius. This is a very interesting concept to me.
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