Angels in America questions

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 12:52am

Some aspects of ANGELS IN AMERICA have always puzzled me (things which only add to my love of the play, I suppose, because the enigmatic qualities are so fascinating), so I'd like to discuss the following issues:

- What is the function of the fantastical in the play? Why does Kushner blend political and historical realism with the "gay fantasia" of angels, dreams and hallucinations, talking manniquins? My professor says the fantastical elements serve a Brechtian purpose, a self-aware theatricality that breaks up the realist action of the play in order to defamiliarize it; I find, however, that that explanation for the play's fantasty is too simplistic for something so central to the play. What do you all think?

Most puzzling for me is Millennium Approaches III.ii., when Prior is being examined by Emily, his nurse, and suddenly a flaming Hebrew tome rises from the floor. Why does Kushner include this moment?

- Why so many allusions to THE WIZARD OF OZ, and also Tennessee Williams? I can understand the OZ quotations -- both ANGELS and OZ feature an excursion into the realm of fantasy, and both use double-casting to suggest connections between certain characters. However, why the reference to Williams ("I've always depended on the kindness of strangers"? The allusions are very metatheatrical conceits. I don't suppose Kushner just wanted to connect his play to the long tradition of American theatre and myth (The Wizard of Oz being one of America's most cherished myths). Can anyone offer their views?

Updated On: 4/8/05 at 12:52 AM

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 1:08am

I could write MANY paragraphs on both questions (and have in the past), but here are a couple of short answers:

Kushner is a great adherent to Brecht's notions and theories of "epic" theatre (as an MFA directing student at NYU, he used "Caucasion Chalk Circle" as his thesis and final directing project). Kushner (as did Brecht) wanted to employ a vocabulary of stage craft and storytelling that went beyond the realistic, naturalistic conventions of the well-made play and that desire heavily-influenced the fantastical writing in "Angels In America."

Kushner is also a huge fan of the various tropes of gay camp. Be it Williams or "The Wizard of Oz" or "Come Back, Little Sheba" or Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" or Ludlam's Ridiculous Theatre or drag queen vocabulary, gay camp has a major influence on the humor within the play and informs how certain characters (Belize and Prior especially) communicate with one another.

Updated On: 4/8/05 at 01:08 AM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 1:28am

Thank you, Margo, for your wonderful reply (and are your other written paragraphs regarding these subjects posted on BWW? ).

Do you think that Kushner's use of fantasy transcends Brecht's Epic Theatre and becomes something more? There is so much emphasis on the "spectral" quality of the play, and the issues of spirituality and religion, that it seems reductive to say the fantasies just serve to defamiliarize the realist events for the audience. While Brecht rejected the "hallucinary" qualities of realist theatre, wanting his audience to be critically engaged with the play rather than be swept away by it, Kushner's production notes suggest that he still wants his audience to be charmed by the pure theatrical spectacle of an angel descending upon the stage -- a kind of dual observance, one that embraces the spectacle and the other that sees its artificial construction. Why doesn't Kushner have just a straight Brechtian approach and reject the attractiveness of spectacle?

A professor of mine criticized the end of MILLENNIUM APPROACHES as being more campy than awe-inducing. I never had the pleasure of seeing the play onstage, so I can't comment about that, but from the accounts I've read, the arrival of the Angel was truly astounding in the theatre. What do you think? And is the alleged campiness of the Angel's arrival intentional?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 1:45am

I SO wish you'd at least seen the Wolfe Broadway production (though from reports, the Chicago and London productions were at least as well-received, if not more so).

There was nothing campy, to me, about the Angel scene at the end of Millenium in the Wolfe production (other than, perhaps, Prior's "Golly, very Stephen Spielberg" line which was just a momentary respite from the gripping spectacle of it). As Kushner instructed, you could see the wires (reminding you that this was a true "theatrical" moment, not a realistic one), but it was powerful all the same. I was critically engaged throughout, as Brecht would have wanted (I thought my head was going to explode from all of the questions and observations I was making as I witnessed it -- there's a reason I went back multiple times to watch it).

The Wolfe production, I thought, perfectly balanced the play's melodramatic moments with its campy moments, heart-rending dramatic moments, mystical conceits, metaphorical and fantastical elements, as well as meta-theatrical elements so that you were constantly engaged on multiple levels -- some intellectual, some emotional (though there are some I know who prefer other productions of the play). Wolfe "got" the camp in the script (being a gay man himself, I'm sure didn't hurt) but never used it to undercut the seriousness and the drama, but instead as a pressure valve so that when things got SO intense, single quip or one-liner would make the overall moment bearable.

Updated On: 4/8/05 at 01:45 AM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 2:02am

Thank you for your post, Margo! Your return to BWW is most welcome! I wonder, is a video of the Wolfe staging available at the Lincoln Center for viewing? (I'm in Toronto, but this sounds like something I should catch the next time I'm in NYC, whenever that may be.)

I've only seen Nichol's film version, so that's the interpretation of the play I'm familiar with -- some of the metatheatrical elements are downplayed because of the medium, but I was still bowled over. I actually found the film to be so effective that I'm having a hard time imagining what the play is like in the theatre: how did/do Wolfe and other directors handle all the changes in setting, double-casting, and the sheer size and spectacle of it all? Some of the settings are so exact, I wonder how they're portrayed in the theatre (was the Bethesda Fountain convincing for a New York audience?).

What's your opinion of the film, what it did well and didn't do well? I know the movie has received criticism of not being funny enough compared to the stage production.

I apologize for all these questions, I just find this play absolutely fascinating and it really tickles my curiosity.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/8/05 at 2:29am

I was somewhat disappointed by the film. It struck me that Nichols was intimidated by the material or worried too much about dumbing it down for a mainstream tv audience, pointedly de-emphasizing the many political and philosophical musings (note the editing of the Louis-Belize diner scene) and undercutting SO much of the humor that certain dramatic scenes that were so powerful on stage came off as bland and merely melodramatic in the film. Or he lost the "meat" and wit of certain critical metaphorical scenes, notably the "threshold of revelation scene" got too bogged down with Nichols' ode to Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast" that all of the air went out of it, such that it was almost depressing, where on stage it crackled with wit and vibrancy. He also TOTALLY didn't understand the gay camp elements of the play (and didn't help himself by casting Justin Kirk as Prior, who had no idea what he doing half the time -- Stephen Spinella, who won TWO Tony Awards for the role, was desperately missed).

Wolfe's staging was fast-paced, energetic, raw, passionate but minimalist, with a few set pieces (a bed, a desk, a couch, a park bench) suggesting the locale of each scene. There was a large replica the Bethesda Fountain on stage for the final scene.

The double-casting was seemless -- thanks to the extraordinary ensemble of actors (Kathleen Chalfant was a particularly standout -- her Rabbi, Bolshevik, Dr.Henry and Hannah Pitt are still definitive to me ..... even more so than the great Streep).

As "epic" as the play is, most scenes in it involve two character confrontations, and Wolfe managed to capture the intimacy and the immediacy of them, yet still convey the larger meanings and significance of the text (which can't have been always easy to pull off). The naturalistic blended seemlessly with the fantastical, the painful drama with the farce-like elements, the political with the personal -- perhaps the most brilliant production of a play I've ever seen.