Angels in America soars and inspires

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, which just opened at Centaur Theatre, is one of those rare works that makes time seem irrelevant. At 3-1/2 hours duration, with two intermissions, it whips by like a subway train.

Kushner is a writer of blazing cinematic vision who dares to rant in riffs. This electrifying epic, set in 1985, strikes at the heart of America in Republican times. Packed with contradictions and colliding visions, constantly teetering between the scurrilous and the divine, it speaks ill of the dead (the late Roy M. Cohn, lawyer and power broker; who died in 1986 of “liver cancer”) while courting seraphim on high.

The worst to be said about Angels in America is that it’s so parochially American (liberal Democrat), Jewish (secular) and gay (male). What makes Angels soar is Kushner’s gift for bringing out the universals and commanding identification. We all love, breathe and die. AIDS and the depletion of the ozone layer are threats to us all.

The real tear-jerker in Angels is not heat Prior Walter; WASP lover of the remarkably conservative, gay, Jewish Democrat, Louis Ironson, is dying of AIDS, but that Walter is ditched by the one he loves in time of greatest need.

Angels, directed by Centaur’s recently appointed artistic-director; Gordon McCall, is a grabber that won’t let go. Casting (except for an error with the Martin Beller role) is superb, acting frequently breathtaking. Michel Eagan’s A-line cathedral set with spaceship sliding doors is ideal for the play’s mood and style. Dramatic pop-music bridges keep the piece true to its time.

McCall starts off with a shocker that works: Joan Orenstein playing a (male) orthodox rabbi officiating at the funeral of a woman (Ironson’s grandmother) whose name he can’t remember.

James Kidnie takes no prisoners as “fictionalized” Roy M. Cohn, a sleaze lawyer out to recruit the innocent and passive young Mormon, Joseph Porter Pitt (Robb Patterson), into the secretive, corrupt wing of the Republican Party. Patterson, who could pass for a junior Kennedy, is credible, if not always compelling, as a man torn between his religion, his party, and his neurotic, Valium-addicted wife, Harper (played wacko-beatific by Stephanie Moore).

Since the play, for all it’s wide ranging sweep, is heavily preoccupied with the Walter/Ironson relationship, the performances of Glyn Thomas, as the waifish Walter, and Peter Duschenes, as the constantly rationalizing Ironson, are crucial. Thomas is near-prefect, never allowing the pathos to submerge the wit. But in the long run, it is Duschenes gravely detailed portrayal of the less sympathetic Ironson that impresses. Denis Simpson snaps up every poetic, sarcastic crumb as Belize, the devoted drag queen.

Insofar as Angels in America is a test of McCall’s directing mettle, it’s apparent that he never loses sight of the essentials. A few awkward moments remain, one of which slightly mars the deus ex machina ending. But momentum is sustained throughout three demanding acts, with only a slight let-up in the second. The result is (dare we say it?) inspirational, a sacredly profane, always lyrical wake-up call to the complacent. Bravo!

Pat Donnelly
THE MONTREAL GAZETTE