‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: Nathan Lane, giving the performance of his career. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

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ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART 1, MILLENNIUM APPROACHES & PART 2, PERESTROIKA
A GAY FANTASIA ON NATIONAL THEMES
By Tony Kushner
Directed by Marianne Elliott
Neil Simon Theatre
250 West 52nd Street
877-598-0955, https://angelsbroadway.com/

 

By Scott Harrah

There are two main reasons to see this revival of Tony Kushner’s classic two-part AIDS epic, Angels in America, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. The first part is a masterpiece and one of the most provocative American plays of all time. Finally, the cast is superb and many of the performances are among the best in the past decade.

Both plays can be either seen in two parts on two separate evenings or on “marathon” days, when both Part 1, Millennium Approaches and Part 2, Perestroika are shown consecutively in repertory in the matinee and evening performances, at a total running time of nearly eight hours, with two intermissions in each part. If you decide to see only one part, Millennium Approaches is the better of the two because it is a seamless depiction of the early days of the AIDS pandemic. Mr. Kushner’s intricately constructed play is a heartbreaking visit back to that dark period for gay men in 1980s America, particularly poignant for those of us who lived through it, and of rich and important historical value for younger audience members who have never known someone who died of AIDS.

Millennium Approaches revolves around the stories of gay couple Louis Ironson (James McArdle) and his lover Prior Walter (Andrew Garfield), who is dying of AIDS; and “straight” couple Joe Pitt (Lee Pace), a Mormon lawyer, and his wife Harper (Denise Gough), a pill-popping housewife. Prior tells Louis he has AIDS, but Louis isn’t able to deal with having a sick lover. Roy Cohn (Nathan Lane), a right-wing lawyer, offers Joe a job in the Justice Department in Washington. However, Joe’s wife Harper, suffering from anxiety and hallucinations and a growing dependence on Valium, does not want to move to Washington.

Joe finds Louis crying in the men’s room one day and this is where the two couples’ lives start to intertwine. The two men begin a friendship, partially because Louis suspects Joe might be gay. In a dream sequence, Harper and Prior meet and she reveals that her husband is a closeted homosexual. She later confronts Joe but he denies being gay.

Meanwhile, Roy receives shocking news from his doctor. The doctor diagnoses Roy as having AIDS. Roy considers gay men weak and refuses to accept that he has AIDS, a “gay” disease. Roy says he will tell people he has “liver cancer,” but his doctor insists his efforts would be better spent acquiring an experimental AIDS drug.

The plot is complicated and has the feel of a classic Greek tragedy, with all of Harper’s hallucinogenic scenes and Roy being visited by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (Susan Brown), the American woman he helped put to death based on allegations of Communism and “treason” back in the 1950s.

While Louis shuns his lover and seeks anonymous late-night sex in Central Park, Prior finds some comfort and compassion from his nurse, Belize (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett). Sexual tension grows between Louis and Joe, and Joe eventually makes a surprising revelation to his mother Hannah (Ms. Brown in a dual role) back in Salt Lake City.

Part One ends with a cliffhanger, which anyone familiar with the story already knows (so discussing it is not exactly a spoiler). Prior, growing increasingly ill, has a prophetic vision when an Angel (Amanda Lawrence) crashes through the roof of his apartment and ominously says, “The Great Work begins.”

Part One is a carefully constructed work. However, Part 2, Perestroika, is a much weaker and disappointing show. Harper is hallucinating wildly, imagining she is in Antarctica, but she’s really in Prospect Park, Brooklyn and gets picked up by cops. Joe is not around, but his mother Hannah arrives in New York and takes Harper in, offering her a chance to visit her at the Mormon Visitor’s Center. Hannah is volunteering there.

Roy Cohn grows sicker and is admitted to the hospital where Belize works. Roy starts off making horribly racist comments to the nurse, yet Belize, ever the professional, takes the proverbial high road and offers the dying lawyer advice on his treatment. Later, Prior tells Belize about the Angel.

It is at this point that making sense of Perestroika gets challenging, as the narrative becomes more convoluted. The Angel gives Prior a prophetic book and explains that God abandoned the Angels in Heaven after the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, and they believe they are powered by human sexual activity. Prior is now horrified by the Angel and tries to avoid her.

What makes the story so compelling, in addition to the dark subject matter about how AIDS affected so many, is the skillful way playwright Tony Kushner makes the lives of the characters intersect.

Director Marianne Elliott certainly puts a new spin on Angels in America, but her directorial choices may not please purists familiar with the original production. However, two actors give performances that are first-rate in every sense and help make this a “must-see” revival regardless.

British actress Susan Brown is simply incandescent in her multiple roles, whether she’s playing a rabbi, Hannah the Mormon mother or the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. Her hospital scene after Roy Cohn’s death, in which Ethel’s ghost recites the mourner’s Kaddish in Hebrew, is truly haunting and eerily touching. Her interpretation of Hannah, the woman torn between her Mormon faith and compassion for her son and Prior grappling with his illness and the Angel, is consistently outstanding and rings with truth.

Andrew Garfield as Prior gives a fine performance, as does Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as the nurse Belize (although he is perhaps a bit too camp in places), and Lee Pace as Joe is superb, but Nathan Lane as Roy Cohn overshadows everyone. New York theatergoers have seen Mr. Lane many times before, but never like this. He is absolutely riveting every moment he is onstage, displaying all the hatred and rage and self-loathing of the Roy Cohn character. Toward the end of Roy’s life, as he is dying in a hospital bed, convulsing as he goes in and out of seizures, Mr. Lane’s interpretation is nothing less than awe-inspiring. This is, without question, the virtuoso stage performance of Nathan Lane’s career.

The original production featured the Angel with realistic-looking traditional wings, but in this revival the Angel, as conceived by puppet designers Finn Cardwell and Nick Barnes, looks more like Rodan, with the wingspan of a 747, about to destroy Tokyo in one of those old Godzilla movies. In addition, six actors alternate playing “Angel Shadows” to hold up the “wings.” The result is silly and distracting and adds nothing to the show. Puppetry may have worked for director Marianne Elliott in War Horse, with its gorgeous horse creations, but this new angle on angel wings just reeks of hubris and pretension here. As the adage goes “less is more,” and that is certainly the case here in an epic saga that is already so complicated, but there is no doubt this revival is a memorable one and should attract new generations of Tony Kushner fans, and will be talked about for many years.

 


Edited by Scott Harrah
Published March 25, 2018
Reviewed at March 17, 2018 preview performance.

 

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: Beth Malone & the ‘Angel Shadows’ (in dark costumes). Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’: Andrew Garfield & Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’: James McArdle & Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’. Lee Pace. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: Susan Brown as Ethel Rosenberg. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: James McArdle & Lee Pace. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’: Nathan Lane & Susan Brown. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: Nathan Lane & Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’: Nathan Stewart-Jarrett & Denise Gough. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-MILLENNIUM APPROACHES’: Susan Brown. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg

‘ANGELS IN AMERICA-PERESTROIKA’: (Front) Andrew Garfield & (back) James McArdle, Susan Brown & Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. Photo: Brinkhoff Mogenburg