The U’s Theatre Department is taking on the brilliant and mammoth work of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, being directed by Larry West and premiering in the Babcock Theatre tonight.
The play brings into focus three unique relationships-that of Louis and Prior (a gay couple dealing with Prior’s AIDS diagnosis), Harper and Joe (a Mormon couple that has to deal with Joe’s homosexuality and Harper’s depression) and finally the infamous Roy Cohn (a lawyer who died of AIDS in 1986 while still denying his own homosexuality).
Angels in America explores religion, faith, sexuality, ethics and moral responsibility with a unique and thought-provoking perspective. Kushner puts the players in their respective corners and watches them fight everything from themselves to heaven and earth.
The play challenges politics and choice, offering what Kushner calls, “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”
The play is part one of a two part series-the initial play is set in New York, during the 1980s, in the middle of the Reagan Era, on the eve of the next millennium, offering a unique and fitting backdrop to an age when AIDS was little-known and the future was far from certain politically and religiously. This atmosphere creates an interesting and poignant tension within the play that drives the dramatic action.
Go see Angels even if you disagree with everything about its content and circumstances-its poetic and life- affirming language and themes illustrate an intimate story of people and the choices they make. It just might change the way you think.
Angels in America will continue in its second installment as part of Babcock’s 2006 season. Tickets are available at Arttix, Kingsbury Hall and other vendors on campus.