Angels in America
“Very Steven Spielberg,” gasps the prophetic gay AIDS patient in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America as the rumbling approach of a winged messenger causes the walls of his New York apartment to shake. In the 1993 Broadway premiere of Kushner’s “gay fantasia on national themes,” the moment was Spielbergian indeed, transforming the stage of the Walter Kerr Theatre into a three-dimensional movie screen.
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Now the Journeymen’s beautifully acted, low-budget production offers even stronger proof that less is more. Eschewing almost any hint of large-scale spectacle, this black-box staging comes closer to the heart of Kushner’s moving, funny work than either the New York or national version. The audience sits on either side of a plain black floor, on the same level as or just a little above the actors, an arrangement that fosters a sense of shared experience between performers and viewers. There are no sets, just black drapes and a few pieces of furniture: a chair and a table, a park bench and a hospital bed. When an angel “flies” onstage, it’s atop a rolling stairway (to paradise, I suppose). In such an intimate atmosphere there’s no room for phony dramatics or eye-popping images. But the consistently stark vision and compellingly honest and versatile performances of this production–directed by cast member David Cromer “and the company”–expose the simple, vulnerable humanity at the center of Kushner’s often fantastical tale of life and love in a time of cosmic change.
When Prior is diagnosed with AIDS-related cancer, Louis–a passionate critic of society’s ills but a coward when it comes to a fellow human’s infirmities–moves out, leaving his lover to suffer alone. Prior soon begins taking astral journeys to the home of Harper Pitt, a pill-popping manic-depressive whose husband, Joe, is a Mormon Republican lawyer–and a closeted homosexual. (Joe’s Mormonism represents yet another migrant legacy in this “melting pot where nothing melted.”) While Harper and Prior console each other over the loss of the men they love, the guilt-ridden Joe finds romance with the liberal Louis, who terms their politically improbable union “an ideological leather bar.”
But the acting is the focus, and considering the characters’ rapidly changing and escalating emotional states, the commitment, variety, and authenticity of the performances are impressive. The well-chosen ensemble features Cromer’s sourly self-absorbed, bitterly intelligent Louis; Natasha Lowe’s volatile and vivid Harper; Jeff Christian’s emotionally stifled lummox of a Joe; Annabel Armour’s eternally vindictive Ethel and flinty but vulnerable Hannah; and the statuesque Elizabeth Laidlaw’s simultaneously ethereal and powerful angel.
