Angels in America An examination
Tony Kushners two-part, Pulitzer-winning Angels in America opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre -- Millennium Approaches on May 4th,1993, and Perestroika that November 23rd. ... Of all ten plays, Angels was the only one written in the last third of the century. In the years since its Broadway premiere, Angels has been produced by a tremendous amount of theaters across the country, with award-winning productions all over America, from Chicago to Boston, to Denver, as well as in many other places. ... Angels tackles several emotional and political issues, with nearly a conflict for everyone: it depicts Prior Walters battle against AIDS; the marital breakup of the closeted, gay Joe Pitt; the haunting by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg of Roy Cohn, as he dies of AIDS; the history of the Mormon Church; and the politics and judicial rulings of the Reagan era. ... Angels is a "gay play," and at the same time an American play. ... Angels in America focuses on the fact that both kinds of community can be destroyed and then recreated. In Millennium, relationships are destroyed, Roy practically rewrites the law to suit his needs, and this wreckage is symbolized by the physical destruction caused by the Angels appearance at the end of Part One. ... An interesting HBO connection is that Angels in America plays a part in the story and creation of The Laramie Project, about Matthew Shepard, a young Wyoming gay man who was killed in a hate crime committed by other local young men. In the film, a University of Wyoming theater student speaks to interviewers of defying his parents to perform a scene from Angels in a scholarship competition. ... However, by the end by the end of the play, the theater department has scheduled a production of Angels: "How do we reach a whole state where there is some really deep-seated hostility toward gays? ... " Additionally, in a peaceful protest against Matthew’s murders, people from the town dress up as angels, all in white, just as in the play.