by Tony Kushner
Presented by Soulpepper Theatre
Directed by Albert Schultz
This week, as part of the huge
World Pride festivities in Toronto, Soulpepper Theatre has remounted their
multi-award-winning production of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. To call
this production a theatrical experience of a lifetime is a gross understatement.
Angels in America is a very unusual kind of play. It’s a single play, a 6½ - hour epic (split
for convenience into 2 parts) that deals with a huge range of emotions and
issues in very difficult personal situations.
It’s a story very much of the time in which it was written (1990-95) and
of the time in which the story is set (1985-1990), yet it is a story with
implications for all times and places. It poses many technical difficulties in
staging, yet the best production would be one in which the technical aspects of
the show are kept as simple and (at the author’s express request) as obvious as
possible. An actor’s script it certainly is, which requires each of the eight
actors to play two or more roles, yet one in which many of the characters are
difficult to understand unless you have walked in their shoes. And who among us has ever “walked” in the
shoes of an angel?
Kushner’s script is subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. It was written, rewritten, and developed
over a period of several years. The two
parts were premiered separately, Millennium
Approaches in 1991 and Perestroika in
1992. The complete work had its first
staging in 1993. That subtitle, of
course, flings this piece right into the ongoing battlefield of gay rights and
recognition, as well as plunking it smack into the middle of the changing
cultural landscape within the gay community itself. It’s impossible to sort out critical reaction
to the play from the emotionally-charged debates which have occurred and continue
to occur over these issues. This
difficulty presumably also applies to my review!
For your convenience, gentle
reader, I am going to split my comments into 2 parts.
[1] The Script
This sprawling, epic conception
is a major and significant work of art, and well worthy of its claim to a place
in the canon of major dramatic works.
But it definitely has its flaws.
(Indeed, show me a great work of art that doesn’t – if you can!) There’s a great deal of philosophising in the
play. Some of it comes very naturally,
indeed organically. The prime example of
this is the entire long scene with the angel which begins Part 2. Her language attains a degree of poetry and
insight, combined with a uniquely tragic authorial vision, which place it high
in my estimation as a major piece of dramatic literature. The overall similarity in tone to the text of Waltraute's long, tragic monologue in Act 1 of Wagner's Götterdämmerung was especially striking.
However, some of the other philosophical passages appear much more contrived, indeed almost stuck on, and decidedly pretentious. Sadly, this was especially true of the ending – a long and involved exegesis on the myth of the fountain of Bethesda which hits us over the head with a tedious explanation of what many in the audience have already intuited from the play as a whole, if only subconsciously. These weaker philosophic passages marked the only places during the production when I checked out of the play, momentarily, saying to myself, “Oh, no, they’re off on that again.”
However, some of the other philosophical passages appear much more contrived, indeed almost stuck on, and decidedly pretentious. Sadly, this was especially true of the ending – a long and involved exegesis on the myth of the fountain of Bethesda which hits us over the head with a tedious explanation of what many in the audience have already intuited from the play as a whole, if only subconsciously. These weaker philosophic passages marked the only places during the production when I checked out of the play, momentarily, saying to myself, “Oh, no, they’re off on that again.”
Once the author pulled out of his
self-made philosophical traps, the script sparkled with wit, humour, energy,
fire and endless surprises. In a play of
this kind, any “conventional” resolution of any problem would be a cheap
cop-out, and would drag the play down to the level of soap opera
melodramatics. It’s very much to
Kushner’s credit that he largely avoided conventional expectations; indeed, he
did a fine job of subverting them in his writing.
The script does go over the top
occasionally with its humour. Thank
goodness the momentary parody of the ending of The Wizard of Oz (movie) remained only momentary. Of course it was a tip of the hat to the gay
community’s reigning cultural icon, Judy Garland, but it was so blatantly stuck
on that it made me cringe.
The other major question
remaining is somewhat didactic of me, but I am going to ask it anyway. I have read that Kushner is a major admirer
of the Brechtian epic method of gently easing the audience out of their
emotional involvement with the characters every time they begin to slide into it. But did Kushner intend this play to be an
exhibition of Brechtian authorial technique? I would have to say no. Angels
in America, epic in size though it may be, is a very searing and involving
experience on many levels. Although many
of Brecht’s epic devices are used, Kushner’s characters ring with emotional
truth and depth, each one struggling with his or her own agony as they draw us
into their world. I emphatically agree
with Damien Atkins who said in an actor’s note in the program:
…I realized that “Angels in America” is also (and perhaps most
importantly) a call to citizenship, a desperate cry for all the living to care
more about each other – to find in our lives, and in our words, more
compassion. The play implores us – dares
us – to have as much compassion for Roy Cohn, who says and does unspeakable
things, as we do for Prior and Harper and Louis and everyone else.
Compassion is a mode of feeling
that seems very much out of fashion today, perhaps even more so than 20 years
ago when this play was written. I think
it is this sad reality that makes the play as timely today as it was when first
staged – and in some ways, perhaps even more so. I might even go one stage further, and argue
that a more appropriate subtitle for today would be “A Gay Fantasia on Human
Themes”, since so many of the issues arising in this play are now seen coming
to the surface in other societies than the United States.
[2] The Production
Soulpepper’s management offered
us the opportunity of witnessing the entire two parts in one day, with a 3 hour
break in between Part 1 and Part 2. In
my opinion, this is the only desirable way to see it. The work is such a continuous whole that a
lapse of a day or two between parts would be destructive to the overall,
cumulative power of the performance.
It took me about 2 or 3 minutes
to enter into the world of the play at the beginning, but once I did I was
hooked. From then, I was riveted for
practically every step of the way (with exceptions already noted). The time stretches between intermissions are lengthy, but it was inevitable that I should sink right back into the world of the play after each break -- and then be shocked
at how much time had elapsed when the next break came.
The set designed by Lorenzo
Savoini was simple but evocative. I was
particularly struck by the detail that each of the ten doors surrounding the
space was different in colour, tone, or in the details of locks and
latches. Yet all ten were tired, worn,
old – and actually came across as prematurely aged in relation to the clean
classic revival details of the dark iron-grey wall panels. We were left to decide for ourselves exactly
what message the revised set of Part 2 portended – panels twisted open, one
wall section missing, the central bed skewed at an odd angle, and looking
(being?) smaller than the central bed in Part 1.
Lighting designer Bonnie Beecher
produced wonderful lighting effects to highlight the multitude of spaces and
times in which the story unfolds. Richard Feren’s sound designs came into play
in the outdoor scenes of course but also – crucially – in the hallucination and
dream sequences. The humming sounds
during the visitations of the angel evoked powerful spiritual energy without
any tacky devices like in-your-face chanting choirs of celestial voices.
The eight actors produced between
them a whole raft of memorable performances.
The eight main roles they portray are all flawed, wounded, hurting human
beings, each with his or her own cross to bear.
Damien Atkins, as AIDS-infected Prior Walter, has the most obvious cross
but Atkins showed us other, less pleasant dimensions of the man and kept him from becoming a
mere cypher of suffering sainthood. Prior
often uses humour to keep the horror of his situation at bay, and Atkins made
the most of this, with splendid comic timing aplenty – particularly in the
major scene with the Angel. Gregory
Prest did splendid work as Louis Ironson, the educated, philosophical Jewish
lover of Prior who spends the entire play sinking lower and lower in his own
estimation. Ironson is a man of tremendous
verbal energy, who can find a literary or philosophical or historic reference
to any situation (I can relate), and his increasing bafflement as his words
fail him again and again has to be handled carefully, lest it go too far, too
fast. Prest played the man and his
limitations admirably.
Mike Ross portrayed the closeted
Mormon legal clerk, Joseph Porter Pitt, with humanity shot through with
emotional pain as he struggled to cope with his hallucinating wife and his
repressed homosexual nature. His
situation is the closest the play comes to a conventional melodrama, the tale
of a man who loves and loses, again and again, ending with nothing and
nobody. Ross ensured that the character
remained intensely human, never turning into a soap-opera star turn. Michelle Monteith as Harper Amaty Pitt gave
us a fascinating character study, a woman drifting back and forth between
reality and unreality so slowly and smoothly that neither she nor we could say
for certain when and where the line was crossed.
I actually felt sorriest for Troy
Adams who plays the role of Belize, the ex-drag queen nurse. His part comes closest at times to becoming a
2-D stereotype of any of the characters, and that’s a nasty situation for any
actor to cope with. Adams managed to
breathe humanity into even those moments, and showed particular power and depth of character in the
final scenes in hospital with Roy Cohn.
As Cohn himself, Diego Matamoros gave an excellent account of the
manipulative power broker who finally comes up against the wall in a situation (AIDS)
where he can’t buy his way out. As nasty
a piece of work as Cohn is, Matamoros yet drew our sympathy as he died in
hospital, alone except for a nurse he hated and the ghost of the woman he had
doomed to execution decades earlier, Ethel Rosenberg.
Joe’s mother, Hannah Porter Pitt
was played by Nancy Palk. As written,
she is probably the most perplexing character in the piece, a woman of vehement
mixed emotions kept on a tight rein of social, moral and religious
expectations. In the scene where she
sits through the night at Prior’s bedside in hospital, humanity begins to seep
out of her through little tiny cracks in her façade. Palk did fine work in keeping those little
leaks from spreading out to drown the character. Her compassion was of a piece with everything
else about her personality (restricted, proper, repressed and conventional) but
it was still very real for all that.
Raquel Duffy had the tough task
of portraying the most unconventional character of the lot, the Angel who
appears to Prior Walter – in dreams? In hallucinations? In reality?
With movement restricted by flying wires and huge stiff silver wings,
Duffy still gave a powerhouse performance of that beautiful sequence of the
script to which I already referred – and more besides. Hortatory voice and blazing, glaring eyes,
peremptory gestures, an expression of unutterable sadness on her face as she
described how heaven had disintegrated into disorder, all went to create a
memorable portrayal of a character that could so easily have become
embarrassing.
The actors did a splendid job of
playing the numerous minor characters too.
I won’t try to credit all of them, because it was too often hard to be
sure who was doing which parts, but I simply have to mention the splendid apparition
of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg by Nancy Palk (I think). Her recurring presence at Roy Cohn’s deathbed
became one of the most memorable portrayals of the entire show, a smug,
self-satisfied woman who has at last been proved right beyond all doubt.
Kudos, also, to director Albert
Schultz who kept this huge, sprawling, sectional piece on a tight rein
throughout. His choices in matters
relating to stage pictures were mostly very well-judged (a couple of
embarrassingly tacky “Brechtian” crosses and upstagings in the opening
sequences aside) and the balance nicely drawn always between reality and
imagination, a critical element. The
play cracked along at a good clip, never rushing but never dragging either, and
even the overwritten parts of the script crackled with energy and purpose.
If Angels in America is, as I have said, a flawed masterpiece, then
this gifted company, director, and staging team have performed the admirable
feat of making it seem closer to perfect than it really is, a provocative,
powerful and emotional theatre experience not to be missed.
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