‘Angels in America Part One: The Millennium Approaches’ or — The Terror of the Reagan Years?
Last night I finally watched the National Theatre’s adaptation of Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America Part One: The Millennium Approaches’, an extraordinarily play that explodes off the screen both in terms of the writing and the acting bringing those words to life. And this is a play brimming with life even (or should that be “especially”?) when it is concerned about death.
Reagan’s America and the A.I.D.S epidemic are devastating the gay community. This devastation upturns not only individual lives but also the hypocrisy of the Conservative and religious establishments who’s self-denial of human nature in the name of keeping power and controlling national narratives is almost as destructive as the virus itself.
During this time we follow two couples — a young Republican Mormon husband and wife and a gay couple facing the reality of mortality — and how the crisis affects not only their relationships but their view of themselves, their place in America and how America now views them. America might be a melting pot but it is a “melting pot where nothing melts”.
Coping strategies — valium, denial, religion — can only function for so long before collapsing and through this collapse other “realities” exert themselves. Previously unknown characters, sometimes historical and sometimes illusionary, ebb and flow into the story when the fabric of the world is thin enough to allow entry. They confirm America has always been a place governed by Power.
This is most evident in the form of Roy Cohn, a McCarthyite lawyer to Washington. Roy is told by his doctor that he has AIDS and will die. Death isn’t what Roy finds hard to accept. What is unacceptable to Roy is the label “homosexual” (although Roy is less homosexual than a voracious, abusive devourer of all appetites). Roy is not gay; he is a heterosexual who fucks men. As a homosexual Roy would lack the one thing he cannot live without in this nation — clout. And America is all about clout, not truth but simple power. As Roy himself states — “Fuck nice! The Nation says I’m not nice? FUCK THE NATION! Do you wanna be nice? Or do you wanna be EFFECTIVE?”
Of course there is another power coming from the sky, screaming through space like a missile. Prior Walter, a young WASP whose family came to America on the Mayflower, can sense this power as he battles his illness. Yet is this power one of revelation or total annihilation?
‘Angels in America’ is an exceptionally powerful piece of theatre that explodes, both emotionally and thematically, before your very eyes. The issues it deals with are deep, complex and vital but it is the dialogue, often in the forms of invective fuelled tirades of dazzling eloquence, which could easily descend into nothing more than erudite bitterness but, instead, hit you in the gut with their emotional honesty and truth (“Fuck the truth, but mostly, the truth fucks you”).
Yet this isn’t the bleak gnashing of teeth in the darkness, with nearly every scene offering catharsis or leading to a place of understanding or acknowledgement. Plus, all the characters are rounded and complex with nobody having the monopoly on intolerance or bigotry. Our opinions might not melt in America but our emotions seem to be able to.
This dialogue is delivered by actors who know how good, how strong this material is and boy, do they throw themselves into this production. Nathan Lane is as brilliant as expected, his Roy Cohn being easily the most unlikable performance I’ve ever seen him give, yet he still manages to make us, maybe not care for him, but feel something for him even if it is pity wrapped in contempt. But it’s Andrew Garfield as Prior Walter who impresses the most as he balances pathos, humour, self-pity, histrionics, resistance, love, vulnerability and passion in the face of death with one of the most emotionally raw and honest performances I’ve seen in years. It’s an incredible piece of acting.
If you get the chance to see the National Theatre’s adaptation of ‘Angels in America’, or any adaptation for that matter, then you should do so without hesitation. Its three hours long, emotionally intense and overwhelming, but it is uplifting in its vigour, energy, intelligence and honesty.
It is eye, and heart, opening. Maybe the real world is waking up after all?
I’ll leave the last word to Belize as I love how he sums it all up -
“I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word “free” to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”
