Angels in America
By Tony Kushner
Directed by Michael Gow
Cast: Lee Biolos, Odile le Clezio, Judi Farr, Paul Goddard, Glenda Linscott, Colin Moody, Dhobi Opari and John Stanton
Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf Theatre, Sydney until March 27
Reviewed by Kim Spurway and Karen Fredericks
Angels In America is set in 1985 and 1986, the Reagan years. The AIDS crisis, the seeming triumph of the right in American politics, the environmental crisis and the alienation and courage of people living in such a world form a backdrop for this personal, yet universal, drama.
The central characters include Prior, a gay man dying of AIDS, struggling to come to terms with his own death; his lover Louis, an angst-ridden liberal who is terrified of his lover's disease and unable to face the possibility of his death; and the conservative Mormon lawyer, Joe, who is struggling with his blossoming feelings towards men and who becomes Louis' lover.
Joe is married to Harper, a Valium addict who has hallucinations through which she escapes from the fear and unhappiness of her life. She and Prior meet within their dreams and hallucinations and recognise something of themselves within each other.
Roy Cohn, a character based on a real-life New York lawyer who was Nancy Reagan's best friend and Joe McCarthy's right-hand man, discovers he has AIDS. Among the excellent script's high points is the scene in which Cohn explains to his doctor that he is not homosexual, because homosexuals are powerless. Cohn, a politically powerful lawyer, is a heterosexual man who fucks other men, he says. "I don't have AIDS", he adds. "I have liver cancer."
The play is excellent on many levels. Paul Goddard as Prior is passionate, angry and funny, and Odile le Clezio portrays Harper with a sensitivity and depth that make her very believable. The other actors all give good solid performances, including memorable bit parts (played by members of the cast in alternation with their main character) like the half mad street woman, the butch leather man who lives with his parents and the Washington civil servant who thinks buying off the entire Supreme Court is just good politics.
The play must have been a nightmare to stage. It is nearly seven hours long, features more than 20 characters and takes place in dozens of locations, including bedrooms, offices, hospitals, city streets, heaven, hell, public toilets, airplanes, Antarctica and within the human imagination. With a limited budget and limited space, there is some inevitable jarring during scene changes as tables, beds and actors are wheeled on and off.
But the play never drags. The smart, contemporary and, in the end, optimistic script is well supported by the performances. In seven hours the audience gets to know a lot about these people: their politics, sex lives, relationships, fears and spiritual beliefs. It is much a beginning and an end but more a set of relationships and interactions. Nothing stays the same. People and the world are constantly in motion, and that is the play's simple but profound and optimistic conclusion.