11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strange bedfellows, July 15, 2003
If you haven't yet read it, please read the prequel to this play, `Angels in America, Pt. 1: Millennium Approaches' prior to this one. The staging is a bit different, similar in style (rapid scene changes, minimalist set, etc.) but it starts out with the wreckage from the Angel's entry in the previous play.
Kushner described this play as a comedy, but I cannot see it that way. Except for irony and dark humour (perhaps akin to the idea of the Human Comedy, in which nothing is really funny) almost ever movement in the play is serious. And yet, in the face of death, what can be serious?
Roy Cohn is on his deathbed in the hospital, and receives prayers and rebuke from Ethel Rosenberg. Harper is gloriously insane in many ways with a Valium addiction, having lost Joe to a male lover. Harper lives with Hannah, Joe's mother now ensconced in New York City.
Louis and Prior struggle to come to terms, although Prior knows that Louis has met up with Joe. Cohn learns of Joe's marriage break-up and the cause, and throws a fit.
Oh yes, did I fail to mention the drag-queen-turned-nurse named Belize (a stage name) who attends both Cohn in the hospital and Prior at home?
There are extended scenes of Prior and the Angel, exchanging information, stories, prophecies. Back in the days when the supply of AZT was almost non-existent, Cohn manages to get some via his connexions, and Belize manages to get some away from him for Prior. Later, after Cohn dies, he steals the rest of the supply, but not before calling Louis in to recite the Kaddish in thanks for the `gift'. Of course, Louis doesn't want to.
`I'm not saying any ... Kaddish for him. The drugs OK, sure, fine, but no... way am I praying for him. My New Deal Pinko Parents in Schenectady would never forgive me, they're already so disappointed, "He's a f*g. He's an office temp. And now look, he's saying Kaddish for Roy Cohn".'
In the end, there is death, and there is life, and even the high angels cannot stop the progress, for they don't know how. But, like most mythologies, there is a hope that survives. `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. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.'
Kushner's plays are remarkable statements of the culture of the times, in the 1980s and 1990s, with the growth of the AIDS crisis and the unveiling of diversity in all its suffering during arguably the most inopportune political time it could have been occurring, the Reagan/Bush era.
The characterisations are astonishing, as is the dialogue, and despite the drawbacks of play-form to more conventional narrative, this play yields fascinating results, not the least of which because it permits the reader to construct new meanings in conjunction with the play.
***
Kushner's prophetic call for a new world has not been fully answered, and perhaps never can be fully answered. Prophetic calls are interesting things - most prophets in fact fail in their mission (if you look at the Bible and other religions, you'll find out that prophets are often right, but only discovered to be right after their advice has been ignored and destruction has been the result).
The call to the world that I see is that we must all have compassion on those who suffer, for a true commitment to humanity requires that the living make amends to the dead by saving those who can be saved, and comforting those who cannot be to the best of our abilities.
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Angels in America is a story of love, happiness, sadness etc, April 19, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika (Paperback)
Tony Kushner has an interesting way of showing his audience how reality isn't really fun at all. He walks us through the lives of a group of people in which they all know each other somewhere along the line. Tragedy has struck a gay couple...AIDS. Prior contracted aids, hence, his boyfriend decided to leave him. Joe is a married man who is in the closet about being gay, whereas, his wife Harper is an agoraphobic addicted to valium. Life isn't very simple among this group. Kushner somehow makes this story somewhat beautiful. As Prior is dying, Kushner has this Angel come and comfort him. He shows his audience how one may deal with such issues. He sends the message that when things go wrong, stay strong and follow your heart, and everything will turn out okay. Some of the characters in Angels in America changed throughout the story, which made things all the more interesting. For instance, I first perceived Joe as this sweet, original, money making husband. I eventually realized that he was different than what I thought. He turned out to be a confused, gay, and sometimes weak person.
Overall, I think Kushner did a wonderful job in writing this book. There were plenty of times where I found myself to not be able to put down the book. It was very creative, truthful, loving, sad, hopeful, tragic, and powerful. I know that Tony Kushner is an excellent writer just because he can smoothly combine all of those emotions into one story, and make it sound good. Angels in America is an excellent novel, and I would recommend it to anyone.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tony Kushner has the ability to enthral the reader., March 2, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika (Paperback)
Tony Kushner's two part play, Angels In America, although confusing at times, enthrals the reader to the point that he or she cannot put the book down. The graphic nature of the book is somewhat grotesque yet it attracted me and left me wanting to read more. Kushner's power of great detail is an eye opening experience that made me realize and understand that life isn't always what it seems to be. Many of the characters appear to be working their way up to the American dream but in actuality, their dishonesty and inability to openly admit their true sexual feelings turns this wonderful dream into a hellish nightmare. Kushner does an excellent job of keeping the reader interested to the fullest extent, but some methods he uses, at times, were somewhat unclear and confusing. The constant split scenes and references to previous parts of the book made me keep turning back to earlier sections of the play. I had to re-read these sections and page ahead to where I last left off in order to fully comprehend Kushner's main point. He made the play very entertaining to me by adding an element of fantasy. The character Prior is visited by an angel, and two ancestors. Harper is constantly being taken from place to place by her imaginary friend Mr. Lies. Overall I found that Kushner possess the ability to keep the reader in tune at all times, an ability many writers do not have.
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