Although the nature of the AIDS epidemic has changed since Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America first hit Broadway, the play's legacy has only begun to take shape. As evidenced by revivals of fellow works such as The Normal Heart, the epidemic has entered a stage of historical reflection in the public consciousness.
In that spirit, the Court Theatre in Chicago opens its production of Angels in American ( both parts one and two ) March 30, directed by Charles Newell. In addition, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago is giving those who attend its annual spring dinner on March 27 the opportunity to not only purchase tickets for a performance benefiting the foundation, but also to hear from Kushner himself, who will deliver the dinner's keynote speech.
In advance of his visit to Chicago, Kushner spoke with the Windy City Times about AIDS as seen both today and 30 years ago and how Angels in America fits into that history. He also spoke a bit about his work writing the upcoming Steven Spielberg biopic, Lincoln, which will come out at the end of the year.
Windy City Times: When you look back now at the early days of AIDS, do you think about it differently or have a different perspective on its genesis than you did 10 or even 20 years ago when Angels in America first premiered?
Tony Kushner: I've said this a number of times, but since the arrival of Angels, in a funny, weird way there's a similarity between the general attitude toward AIDS now and then in the sense that the causes are very different, but in the late '80s/early '90s with the motto of ACT UP, one of the struggles was to make it impossible for people to ignore what was really happening, and also to try and not get people to ignore the inhumanity of it. There was a great struggle against a kind of conspiracy of silence that went all the way up to the White House and every aspect of culture and society. Now there's another kind of silence and in a way a more terrifying and more difficult to overcome this kind of silence because the magnitude, the spread is incidentally greater than it was in the early days of the epidemic. It's migrated in consciousness—at least to a certain extent—out of the West … . We don't talk about it now because we don't have to, it's not in our midst. It's happening in Africa, it's happening in India, it's happening in Asia … there's a great pull of silence and the disease has sort of disappeared again.
WCT: What in your eyes are the main fronts in the fight against AIDS at present and looking into the future?
Tony Kushner: Obviously increased funding for research, creating government participation free from corporate influence in terms of people sharing information and learning more about making progress and about copyrights and patents. Also, there's making sure at a scientific level and at a research level that we still continue to pursue the possibility of a vaccine, something that will extricate the HIV virus … . There's also an identification, whether it's intentional or not, of the virus with gay sexuality and so the fight against AIDS is very much wrapped up in a fight against homophobia and the systematic oppression of lesbians, gay, transsexual, bisexual and intersexual people … it's sort of a grim thing to see people moving in the opposite direction we're hoping at this point they'd be moving, but there's still a way in which the virus and the fight against the virus are tied into the struggle of the acceptance of LGBTI people.
There's two things about the AIDS epidemic during the time that Angels is describing in the mid-'80s and right before the ACT UP revolution. One of the extraordinary things about that revolution is the way the LGBT community confronted the really horrifying and initially dismaying challenge of a biological medical crisis inflicting a community of people fighting for liberation. We didn't allow it to be appropriated by the Right in the way that we had to deal with it and confront it and take care of ourselves, our adamant refusal to see the epidemic as some kind of verdict against our political ambitions. We really changed not only our own community, and the rights of LGBT people in the United States and in Europe advanced during the worst and weakest moments of the epidemic.
We kept moving forward and used the epidemic as a kind of occasion for organizing, which is unprecedented in human history and really an astonishing thing. The notion of a patient population, of a population of a biologically beset people demanding power in their own care, refusing to be passive participants and victims and instead responding to the medical establishment with an appropriate level of argument and skepticism and a real desire to be intimately involved, it changed the way people who are dealing with illness think about themselves and in a way became part of a cure. It's obviously not a cure for AIDS any more than it is a cure for cancer to have a sense of agency, but it's very much the case that the way you see yourself when you're sick will have some effect on even your health.
WCT: In what way do you think Angels fit in the narrative of AIDS today, and what kind of a role do you think it might play going forward?
Tony Kushner: I feel very proud that the play had some use and value to people who were fighting for healthcare, human rights and for LGBT liberation and I think the play was seen as being a part of that particular moment in history. I don't make any claims for it other than some other immensely important things happened around the time that Angels was becoming a well-known play. I know in '93 when it opened on Broadway there was a moment when Rock Hudson had died and it was really a watershed moment in a way … people knew the world of the epidemic was changing and the most terrible part of the early years was in a sense over. What that did was give people a moment to grieve and I think because of the vast public scale of the epidemic people needed a public place to mourn. The AIDS quilt did that when it first appeared and I think in a way Angels as well.
When people come to see the play now … I would be very happy if the play served as a means of remembering what happened … . There are a lot of young people who have no idea who the Rosenbergs were or who Roy Cohn was and the extent that Angels is what's keeping them in our collective memory is great. But all those things having been said; the only reason that the play ever really worked and the only reason it will continue to work is if the central dialectic is something that will speak to individuals and collectively as an audience. I think the answer is yes, but we'll see what people think when they see it at the Court.
WCT: What if any recent films, plays or other works centered around AIDS have you seen or read that in a positive way add or build on Angels or the AIDS narrative or taught you something new?
Tony Kushner: There was a very powerful exhibit in a gallery at NYU of photographs of front doors of various New York building where a number of prominent artists who had died of AIDS in the '80s had lived. It was quite spooky and very effective and a really shocking reminder of how many immensely gifted artists we lost to the epidemic.
WCT: The Oscars just came and went and looking at next year a lot of people are very excited to see how Lincoln turns out. What inspired you to take on the project and what do you expect audiences to get out of it?
Tony Kushner: After we finished Munich together, Spielberg asked me to write Lincoln and I've always admired Lincoln. I knew what most people know about him and thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more. There's a great deal of my volition politically that made me suspect Lincoln would be a good person to spend some time with. Whatever happens with the movie I will never regret having spent five years on it because I really spent a great time digging deeply into the life of somebody for whom my admiration has only grown and grown. I know that I can say without any exaggeration that working on Lincoln had a title effect on my life. I'm not the same person or the same writer coming out of this project that I was going into it.
WCT: Other things you've been passionate about lately that's inspiring any upcoming creative projects?
Tony Kushner: I have a lot of stuff waiting for me to do. Some film work and a possible television series. I did an opera this summer with Jeanine Tesori with whom I did Caroline, or Change and I'm excited to continue work on it. I'm also excited and scared and hopeful and scared about the upcoming election.
See www.aidschicago.org and www.courttheatre.org .
This story is part of the Local Reporting Initiative, supported in part by The Chicago Community Trust.
