A question about 'Angels in America'- Page 2

[roquat]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 8:52pm

Well, aren't you lucky.

[Ad_Libbing]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 8:56pm

I guess that this is a bit off topic, but I didn't think that I should make a new thread for it, since it's also a question about Angels in America, albeit a different question.

Basically, if Prior has AIDS and has been faithful to Louis for four and a half years, (assuming, of course, that he has been faithful) should we also assume that Louis is sick, too?

Updated On: 10/20/05 at 08:56 PM

[bdf136]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 9:01pm

The reason for not resolving Joe is because of Kushner's message about acceptance and truth. Joe is not honest and truthful to himself, even though he knows deep down what the truth is. Roy Cohn, though somewhat evil, is honest to himself. He is not honest to other people but he accepts his homosexuality, which is why Roy is forgiven and Joe is not. Joe is a tragic figure, but in the end he never makes the choice to accept himself as he is. I think Kushner is telling us that accepting ourselves for what we are is most important.

[roquat]

Posted: 10/20/05 at 9:24pm

Uh...does not compute. Roy Cohn ruins the lives of everyone he touches and is responsible for the deaths of the Rosenbergs, but he can be forgiven for "accepting himself?" And Joe can't because he fumbles and makes mistakes?

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 1:20am

Roquat you're not asking yourself what the play is about. It's not about everyone being nice and forgiven. It's about homosexuality. Dealing with it head on, watching those who can deal with it intereact with those who can't deal with it. Both in themselves or in other people. With any play one MUST consider the THESIS. What is this about? What is the message? And I believe the message is stay true to yourself or it will destroy your soul. Joe is the only one left unsettled because he's the only one who is not true to himself. Everything in the play points towards that.
Updated On: 10/21/05 at 01:20 AM

[Urban]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 2:24am

glenjq - I would like to note that "Under The Banner of Heaven" dealt for the most part a bunch of extremist loons. To tie the entire Mormon Religion to it is rather rotten of you. I can easily 'paint in broad strokes' that the entire gay community is bad because of Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, or the Islamic faith because of Osama Bin Laden. But I don't because that is ridiculous and would make me look like an ignorant fool.

[tcoppola]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 11:49am

I am quite confused here...

I played Joe in college. If I recall (and I don't have the script in front of me, so don't flame me...), Joe goes off with Louis at the end of AIA:Part I. (I assume that we are discussing part one?). If not, just correct me and don't bother reading below.

So, why am I reading all of this stuff about him out with his mom and 3 out and proud gays at the end?

Help, please.

[Urban]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 12:02pm

tcoppola - get your hand on Part 2 (which is what we are pertaining too). It is amazing in its own right and you'd enjoy it.

Spoilers







(very basic synopsis)
Basically at the end Lewis discovers Joe worked for Roy Cohen, he has a rant pretty much calling Joe an Uncle Tom in all but name. They fight, punches fly (the fight itself was pretty mutal to begin with). Joe gets the upper hand, kicks Lewis and leaves.

Basically end of Joe-Lewis storyline.

Lewis in rejection tries to make ammends with Harper, but it doesn't work and neither him or Harper fall for it. Later Harper leaves him.

Harpers storyline ends with her doing a voice over on the plane to San Fransisco, yadda yadda yadda 'big and mysterious adventure' stuff.

Roy Cohen dies but has a final pow-wow with the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.

Angels/ladders/etc

Last scene with Roy bumping into his mother at the subway after Harper left him. That is it.

Final scene Hannah, three other gay guys there. Talk, storyline wrapping up etc.





/end spoilers.


Now this isn't even in proper order (so nobody nitpick) but it is the gist.

Thus that is my problem. Joe to me had a rollercoaster of the storyline but no resolution.

[VIETgrlTerifa]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 12:06pm

We're talking about the end of part two.

I think the reason why Joe doesn't get resolved is because, like many others have said, he rejected himself and tried to hide his homosexuality. He just wanted to use Harper in the end to help him live his lie without any consideration for her happiness and what she needed. His conflict with Louis just made him scared and confused and go backwards. I think many people are looking at his end as the absolute end, but I don't. I think Kushner was saying that at that point, Joe does not deserve redemption or closure because he is still hiding and rejecting who he is and would continue to use the people in his life to help him hide. I don't Kushner really is that unforgivable to Joe because it is still possible for him, it's just Joe isn't at that point where he can get closure.

I also don't think that Joe should be unforgiven or treated horribly either. He's afraid, scared, confused, and in major conflict with himself. Not everyone can be brave or strong like Belize (who I think is the most unrealistic or at least unrelatable character of the play).

It would also be very out-of-character of him to be hanging out with 3 totally out gay men in the end because Joe still needs to deal with himself.

Uh...does not compute. Roy Cohn ruins the lives of everyone he touches and is responsible for the deaths of the Rosenbergs, but he can be forgiven for "accepting himself?" And Joe can't because he fumbles and makes mistakes?

Well, in the end of the play, Roy Cohn is still despicable (yeah I know I butchered the spelling) and people still view him as evil and have a hard time forgiving him (if they can). I don't think it was Kushner's intention for us to forgive or like Cohn in that sense, but making him accept himself helped him be closer to redemption than he was before.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 1:40pm

Belize is hardly unrealistic an unrelatable. Especially if you're gay and black.
You want unrealistic? How about angels coming into people's apartments. Everyone else in the world of the play is realistic. I know people like every single one of those characters. Updated On: 10/21/05 at 01:40 PM

[VIETgrlTerifa]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 2:07pm

I guess unrealistic isn't the right word because you're right that there are a lot of people like him. But for me personally, it was hard for me to relate to him or at least enjoy his character.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 02:07 PM

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 3:21pm

Interesting. Belize is my favorite character I think.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:05pm

Sorry to poke back into such intense discussion, but I was I was talking to a friend about this all, and she said this:

"I think that Joe's story is unresolved because he left. He left New York and his old life after years of feeling trapped there and I imagine him to be off 'finding himself', for lack of a better term. In the end, Joe is no longer confined to the story and has become a symbol of freedom. I like that I don't know exactly where he is, just that he's learning to live."

Just something else to throw into the mix.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:05 PM

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:11pm

It's possible that after all of that he decided to go to Washington after all. HOwever there's nothing in the play that would suggest that he WANTS to find himself. All he's got now is his career.
Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:11 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:15pm

Well, there's no suggestion of the fact that he's particularly satisfied, either, and doesn't see fit to go finding himself. There's so little either way.

[Kringas]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:19pm

Basically, if Prior has AIDS and has been faithful to Louis for four and a half years, (assuming, of course, that he has been faithful) should we also assume that Louis is sick, too?

Prior and Louis weren't faithful. Louis mentions that in Part II. At any rate, I don't think we are to assume Louis is sick.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:19 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:21pm

This might be in scientific and medical naivety, but could Prior have had it from a previous relationship, and been lucky to have a *very* long incubation period? That doesn't do anything to the assumption that Louis isn't sick as well, being that if Prior was unaware, he'd still have passed it on.

[Kringas]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:25pm

Prior discovers he's positive when he notices KS lesions, so he's already into full blown AIDS at that point. They'd been together for four and a half years. It's possible he could have contracted it prior to their relationship, but it's never made clear.

He could have passed it to Louis, but it really depends on what they had been doing sexually with one another. If Louis was strictly a top, the chances for transmission from Prior to Louis would have been slim, but not impossible, and there are still conflicting reports about the probability of transmission through oral sex.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:25 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:29pm

I almost just made a comment that I'm going to keep quiet.

But with a play like AIA, I like to think that there's purpose in everything -- that every bit of info given or even not given was done so with purpose. Maybe we're not supposed to know.

[Kringas]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:32pm

Damn. I'd have liked to have heard that comment.

Indeed, Em, and perhaps the reason we don't know exactly how Prior became infected is because it isn't important. The play never points a finger or shames him for what's happened to him. His infection is merely the catalyst for his journey.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:33pm

I felt bad, thinking in a way that dumbed the play down to tops/bottoms.

Well said.

[Kringas]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:34pm

You shouldn't feel bad, Em. It's a valid thought, but one that ultimately isn't relevant to the story being told. I played Prior, so a lot of these questions were ones I had to answer for myself.

Updated On: 10/21/05 at 04:34 PM

[insomniak]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 4:35pm

"It's possible that after all of that he decided to go to Washington after all."

Nothing in the play supports that idea or that he went back to his old ways. He left his wife and was upset when louis wouldn't come back to him- what inclination does that show to go back into the closet? Joe also knows from Roy what kind of people are in Washington and they clearly don't fit his ideals. It wouldn't fit at all with the play's closing tone of hope- it's all about moving on, making changes and learning to live. Kushner wouldn't pour so much into Joe and then send him off and expect us to assume he went to Washington.

[Jazzysuite82]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 5:46pm

no that doesn't make sense. The last thing roy says to him is to forget it(living with a man) go back to his wife and go to washington. Roy dies and if you look towards the end, he goes back to Harper. Harper's the one who leaves him. She demands his credit card and leaves, leaving Joe with 2 pills saying "i suggest you go exploring". now Joe abhors those pills so I doubt that he actually would take them and"go exploring". Which metaphorically to me says that he's not gonna deal with himself. That coupled with the fact that he is the only character not to fully resolve suggests that he is stuck. The play's end IS about moving on. Guess who's not there? Joe. That's why he's not there because the character of joe doesn't fit in with Kushner's perception of hope and learning to live and deal. I never said I thought he went to washington, but there's nothing to say he doesn't. I think it's for the actor to decide. I think it would support the fact that he is ultimately stuck if he DID go to washington. The point is NO ONe KNows and if Kushner wanted us to, he would have stated it. I think it's left to be decided by the audience. It's similar in Caroline or Change. You don't know if she ever changes and if she goes back to the Gelman's and coninues being the person she was. I think that's beauty of his plays.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/21/05 at 6:05pm

Okay.

(a) I agree with insomniak's evaluation -- the whole idea of Joe being lost, but on the way to becoming a new person, and discovering that new person. The man is left without the fibers of his life as he knew it. He has to go on and find what's right for him.
(b) There isn't any concrete indication that he goes to Washington. He disappears -- drops out of the plotline. We don't KNOW where he does. Just as you say there's nothing suggesting him wanting to find himself, I pose to you that there's nothing directly suggesting that he goes specifically to Washington. He just goes... away. Maybe this is similar to what Kringas and I had said about not knowing specifically whether or not Louis has AIDS because ultimately for this small piece of what we get of their lives, it doesn't matter all that much. Perhaps the specifics of what happen to Joe aren't imperative, so they aren't there. Maybe we're meant to assume certain things, but only know that of the grand scheme. I think to say that we can safely assume he went to Washington simply because there's nothing to indicate that he didn't, or to indicate where else he might have gone is a bit narrow. It sort of kills the notion of a play being very open to interpretations -- works like AIA probably aren't so "well, if he didn't do option a, then he HAD to do option b." They're not so this-or-that.

Being that the play's message is one of hope, I'd like to be able to conclude that Joe does go off to do some self-exploring. Why it is perfectly possible that Kushner left him out to sort of "shun" his character in a way, to me, it jives better with the rest of the play for him to be lost to exploration. Kushner, as I see it, has sort of turned him lose in freedom to go find who he is supposed to be.

I've always found Harper to be the character possessing the most intriguing insight in the play. She says: "Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead." She has hope. And I think that's what the play displays overall, hence why I think what I do about Joe's outcome.