Playwright: Tony Kushner. At: Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue. Tickets: 773-753-4472; www.CourtTheatre.org; $45-$65. Runs through: June 3
Of course, you must see Angels in America in this first local production in years by a large theater company. One of the great works of 20th-century U.S. theater, Tony Kushner's play is superbly acted by an intelligent eight-person ensemble dominated by Rob Lindley, as reluctant hero Prior Walter, and Larry Yando, as eager villain Roy Cohn. Director Charles Newell has guided them through their large and difficult roles with a sureand mostly self-effacinghand.
Still, there are some peculiarities, the main one being John Culbert's counterintuitive (to me) scenic designa vast, dark, three-story mausoleum with a sarcophagus slab at the center and six telephones. I just didn't get it, especially the telephones.
But the main reason I found it counterintuitive is that Angels in America absolutely is not about death, even though both Prior and Roy are dying of AIDS and death is discussed more than once. Even so, Kushner's epic is about life: about whom we will or won't allow to define our lives individually and collectively (as Jews, gays, immigrants, lawyers or whatever), and how we go about defining for ourselves precisely who and what we are. Kushner's greatest condemnation isn't for being Republican or conservative (Kushner himself is an outspoken leftist) but for those who cannot accept themselves. Roy Cohn burns in hell because he was both a self-loathing Jew and a self-loathing gay man"bully, coward, victim," as his AIDS quilt panel so powerfully reads. In Kushner's cosmos, even the archangels are not allowed to dictate terms to a humanity that hungers for life (even if destructively so, on occasion).
Similarly, no matter what some people think, Angels in America is not a play about AIDS, although it uses two characters with AIDS as a framing device for the story. Kushner states his premise precisely in the play's opening words, a eulogy delivered by an old rabbi who says "There is no such place as America ... a melting pot where nothing melted." The play is "a gay fantasia on national themes", and AIDS is not a national themealthough it is a national issue, which isn't the same thing. But America and Americanism are national themes, as are enfranchisement and empowerment, and those are the true themes of the play.
Angels in America was first produced when those with HIV/AIDS were feared, denied, ostracized, demonized and disenfranchised. Among many plays dealing with the issue, Angels helped give voice to the AIDS community (patients, families, lovers, caregivers, scientists and their political supporters) by embracing the poetic dictate of Dylan Thomas: "Do not go gentle into that good night."
AIDS remains with us, although its landscape has vastly altered in 20 years, at least among developed nations. However, the primary themes of Angels in America have not altered. Indeed, conservatism today is darker than during the Reagan years, with deeply bigoted, hateful and narrow-minded people attempting to define what it means to be an American, and we must not let them.
This is what Angels in America is about. Its AIDS-impelled storyline is less sensational and revolutionary today because it's tied to a specific year (Roy Cohn died in 1986; you can't fudge that), but that allows Kushner's primary political themes to shine through as the times demand. There are new Roy Cohns out there, and there always are lost boys like Joe Pitt (played by Geoff Packard) and Louis Ironson (Eddie Bennett) wrestling with emotions and guilt (to acknowledge the important non-political side of Angels). Charles Newell and company give us an Angels in America for today.