Angels
Explore how any playwright of the time has successfully dramatised a
social
issue. Contemporary theatre has stepped further and further away from
the
sugar-coated happy society plays and musicals that once dominated
Broadway and
the West End. Now, harsher more realistic stories with issues
facing today’s
society and politics are shocking that conventional-type of
theatre. "Shock is
a part of art. Art that’s polite is not much fun"
(Kushner:Bernstein). One
of these stories that have made this kind of impact
on modern drama and theatre
is Tony Kushner’s "Angels in America." Described
as "the best American
play in forty years," this two part play ("Millennium
Approaches" and
"Perestroika") gives to life a variety of different
issues facing not just
the American society it is set in but the modern world
as well (Lucas). With the
main story line dealing with gays, politics, and
AIDS in the 1980s, with this
‘A Gay Fantasia on National Themes’ Kushner has
successfully explored these
issues in further detail ultimately "nudging
Broadway into the 21st century"
(Winship). The gay revolution took place in
America in the 1980s which,
consequently, is the setting for "Angels in
America". The strong economy
gave many of "Reagan’s children" power and
courage to be more open with
their sexuality (Part One: Act II, scene vii).
People were ‘coming out’, so
to speak, more than in previous decades. With
five out of eight of the main
characters in the play being gay males, and
half of those in high power
positions (i.e. law), the setting and political
information discussed support
the truth that Kushner writes about the gay
community. "Good politics will
produce good aesthetics, really good politics
will produce really good
aesthetics, and really good aesthetics, if
somebody’s really asking the hard
questions and answering them honestly,
they’ll probably produce truth" (Kushner:Bernstein).
There is truth at
the most basic of levels when, Joe, chief clerk for a Federal
Court of
Appeals judge, admits that he is homosexual (Part One: Act II, scene
viii).
Also truth to the most extreme, a consequence leading to death for
many
homosexuals: HIV and the AIDS virus, involving Roy the successful
lawyer/power
broker (Part Two: Act IV, scene viiii). "Angels in America" is
not just a
‘gay play’, but a play about American politics as well. The
appearance of
politics, not to mention homosexuality and AIDS, are issues
resisted by most
critics and audiences. Despite the odds, the subjects have
proved successful to
Kushner. The political element in this play is one
that is a key in the story
line and something not seen in many plays before
this time. "Is it that
Americans don’t like politics, or is it that so
much theatre that is political
isn’t well done?" (Kushner:Bernstein) It is
mentioned in detail and is even
non-fictional, as mentioned in Kushner’s
disclaimer for "Perestroika".
This type of detail given at an aesthetic
approach essentially gives the
audience a life-like story and the characters
that life to portray. The change
the Reagan era caused in politics and the
country is expressed by these
characters as a part of that society. For
example, Joe, representing the
optimistic opinion, discusses with Harper the
positive change that the Reagan
administration has given to the country:
"...For the good. Change for the
good. America has rediscovered itself. Its
sacred position among nations. And
people aren’t ashamed of that like they
used to be...The truth restored. Law
restored. That’s what President Reagan’s
done....We become better. More
good..." (Part One: Act One, scene v). As
Belize, representing the more
pessimistic opinion, discusses to Louis of his
hate of America under Reagan:
"Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this
country. It’s just big ideas, and
stories, and people dying, and people like
you...I live in America, Louis,
that’s hard enough. I don’t have to love
it..." (Part Two: Act IV, scene
iii). The varying opinions, openly discussed
by these characters, represent the
same doubts and hopes of that American
society. "I think that a character’s
politics have to live in the same sort
of relationship to the character’s
psyche that people’s politics live in
relationship to their own psyches" (Kushner:Bernstein).
Just the detailed
political statements that the characters give in relation to
society are
enough to leave the audience thinking and questioning that
power-hungry
society of the 1980s. Yet, Kushner gives this a further twist by
making the
audience really test their political views. As they may be able to
associate
with these conservative political views, will they still be able to
agree
with that same character and their view on alternative sexuality? This
is
another part of Kushner’s penetrating conception of "Angels in
America",
testing the conventional politics to the new political issues of
the 1980s:
homosexuals. In a time when the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t
Pursue
Policy" was non-existent, gays in the 1980s were being
discriminated for their
openness. This ‘coming out’ evolution was fairly new
to society and was not
going away. "Angels in America" surveys this evolution
though the
heterosexual married Joe, who decides despite the element of his
wife, to
experiment with homosexuality: JOE: " You will always have to make
choices,
and finally all life can offer you in the face of these terrible
decisions is
that you can make the choices freely. I did, I made a choice, I
followed you
Louis...Because the courage to choose enabled me to find
you." (Part Two: Act
One, scene vii). From that first step in
homosexuality, the honesty of ‘coming
out’ from Joe, Kushner further
introduces other gay characters representing
the differences within the gay
community. Prior, a former drag queen turned
designer, who has been diagnosed
with the AIDS virus. Belize, a also a former
drag queen but now a nurse,who
is friends with Prior and Roy’s nurse. Roy
(described previously) who is in
the final stages of AIDS. Louis, a
non-committal character, who leaves Prior
when the virus takes hold and moves
onto a new and healthy lover, Joe, who he
too leaves in the end to return to the
injured Prior. This variety of
characters, like the realistic society they
represent, were subject to a type
of generic labelling as in the 1980s. Roy has
a discussion with his doctor
about these labels when it is diagnosed that he has
AIDS: "Your problem,
Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that
you believe they
mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian.
You think
these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they
don’t tell
you that...Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is a heterosexual
man,
Henry, who *censored*s around with guys" (Part One: Act I, scene ix).
The
homosexual aspect of Kushner writings were apart of the changing history.
There
were some many questions asked and unasked that Kushner honestly
answered to
stay away from the categories this new and unknown subject was
being placed in.
This gay un-awareness found homosexuals being
categorised as all being drag
queens and very effeminate, as well as being
connected to a new category and
subject not present before the Reagan era:
AIDS. The AIDS writing is the most
brilliant and intelligent part of the
"Angels in America" story line.
Through the dawn of AIDS in the 1980s,
the following passages will parallel that
timeline along with the genius of
Kushner’s writings on the subject. In the
beginning of the "AIDS Epidemic,"
as it was referred to early on, the
unknown of HIV and AIDS began making
headlines and making these viruses a
household name. People were confused in
how this could happen to themselves,
their friends or their family members:
PRIOR: "...It’s 1986 and there’s a
plague, half my friends are dead and I’m
only thirty-one...that this is real,
it isn’t just an impossible, terrible
dream..." (Part Two: Act II, scene ii)
Newspapers, magazines, and
television everywhere talked of the AIDS scare and
questions kept on being
asked of how far this disease could be tolerated and if
it could be cured:
LOUIS: "...what I think is that what AIDS shows is us the
limits of
tolerance, that it’s not enough to be tolerated, because when the
*censored*
hits the fan and you find out how much tolerance is worth. Nothing.
And
underneath all the tolerance is intense, passionate hatred." (Part
One:
Act III, scene iii). People with this disease were unsure of their
future and
how unsure of how long their bodies would hold out: PRIOR: "...I
don’t think
there’s any uninfected part of me. My heart is pumping polluted
blood. I feel
dirty." (Part One: Act I, scene vii). The graphic details
Kushner describes
about living and dying with the disease give both the
audience a view of a
horrifying disease and a hope for the future. His
writing in this element is not
pessimistic, as it could easy be, but instead
very hopeful through the death
scenes to the end of the play: PRIOR: " I’m
almost done. The fountain’s
not flowing now... but in the summer it’s a sight
to see. I want to be around
to see it. I plan to be. I hope to be...This
disease will be the end of many of
us, but not nearly all, and the dead will
be commemorated and will struggle on
with the living, and we are not going
away. We won’t die secret deaths
anymore...We will be citizens. The time has
come..." (Part Two: Epilogue). The
most potent command on how to look on the
AIDS Epidemic is written
metaphorically in Kushner’s character Aleksii, the
world’s oldest living
Bolshevik: "If the snake sheds his skin before a
new skin is ready, naked he
will be in the world, prey to the forces of
chaos. Without his skin he will be
dismantled, lose coherence and die. Have
you, my little serpents, a new skin?"
(Part Two: Act I, scene i). Kushner’s
research shows and gives such a clear
view of this disease and it’s effect on
society. Though he is hopeful
throughout some of the play about AIDS, he does
not make any scene dealing with
the virus pleasant to imagine but real and
horrible as it is. The world of today
is not of free and easy going
lifestyles as in previous generations, and the
theatre of the period reflects
that. This "epic for our epoch" brought to
the stage the realism of the
political world, the gay community, and the AIDS
virus (Kelly). These social
elements were successfully faced head-on by Kushner
and transferred just as
successfully to the stage. "Angels in America" is a
play that searches into
that new and frightening aspect of modern life and has
the "transforming
power of imagination to turn devastation into beauty" (Lahr).
Audiences
and readers of the future may see these plays as dated, but they
were
monumental at the time and still are even today some 13 years past the
setting.
The subject and the courage to bring these issues to the stage
were one of sheer
amazement. The imagination used has no parallel that
television or movies can or
could ever present. The poetic vision along with
the concrete images and
controversial issues make "Angels in America" a
masterpiece and Kushner an
artist.
Bibliography
Angels In
America Part One: Millennium Approaches. Tony Kushner. Royal
National
Theatre and Nick Hern Books, London. 1992. Angels In America Part
Two:
Perestroika. Tony Kushner. Royal National Theatre and Nick Hern
Books, London.
1992. "Tony Kushner: The award-winning author of ‘Angels
in America’
advises you to trust neither art nor artists." Tony
Kushner:Andrea Bernstein.
Mother Jones, http://www.mojones.com. "Reviews
of ‘Angels in America:
Millennium Approaches and Perestroika" excerpts
written by: Kelly, Kevin. The
Boston Globe Lahr, John. The New Yorker
Lucas, Graig. Winship, Fredrick M.
United Press International. Tony
Kushner Offical Web Site, www.irsociety.com/kushner.html