Angels in America ending — Page 2

Fanboy99 said: "This makes Joe's fate sound really depressing and cynical. Kind of also goes against the whole point of the play I feel."

Joe's fate has been given a lot of discussion since the plays premiered. Unlike the other central characters, there's no real resolution for him or even a particular hint of one.

Kad said: "Fanboy99 said: "This makes Joe's fate sound really depressing and cynical. Kind of also goes against the whole point of the play I feel."

Joe's fate has been given a lot of discussion since the plays premiered. Unlike the other central characters, there's no real resolution for him or even a particular hint of one.

"

Im glad I'm not the only one that feels this way lol. I guess I can picture my own ending for him.

I really didn't want to weigh in here. The premise of this thread seems to be that a playwright has to dumb down to the dumbest members of his audience. And this seems a completely invalid approach to a play like ANGELS IN AMERICA, which the dumbest members of an audience have no chance of even beginning to appreciate in any event.

Having said that:

Like many people who seroconverted in the 80s, Roy Cohn did not survive.
Like many people who seroconverted in the 80s, Prior survives. How long we don't know.
Like many people whose lives intertwined with people who seroconverted in the 80s, the rest of the characters in ANGELS do not contract hiv.

As has already been noted, ANGELS IN AMERICA is not a tragedy, it's a fantasia. A mythic epic.
Prior is a modern day Jacob, who wrestles with the angel and is reborn, not as someone who will necessarily not die of AIDS, but, metaphorically, as someone who like Jacob is renamed. Jacob became "Israel" which means "perevereth with God."

Finally, there is nothing in ANGELS IN AMERICA that suggests that right wing assholes die of AIDS whereas drag queens with good hearts survive it. To think such a thing or to consider that others who might think such a thing should be pandered to with a different ending is frankly silly.

There isn't much left to say here that others haven't already said. We know the reason Pryor is still alive 5 years after Perestroika is because Belize gave him the (real) AZT Cohn left behind. There's an entire scene devoted to this exchange where Pryor expresses his concerns about the aftermath of AZT and we see those effects on him in the epilogue. Also, although HIV/ADIS was most certainly a death sentence for MANY people, it did not kill EVERYONE who had it. In fact, there are still people alive today who contracted HIV/AIDS in the 80s and early 90s. Here's a link to an article I found through a simple 2 minute Google search with interviews of some of those longtime survivors from 2012.

This play was written to give hope to those who were still wrestling with these issues and the lethal diagnosis. The play is about hope, resilience and fighting for your right to live. I think the ending perfectly sums all of this up. Pryor didn't live because he was a "good" man, he lived because he fought (and because his friend happened to come across a large source of AZT). Also you can't compare the ending of this play to the re-interpreted ending of MFL, because no liberties have been taken with the ending of this revival of Angels in America. The ending we see today is the ending as it was written and performed 25 years ago.

As for Joe I imagine he'd be living in NYC with his mom. Mrs. Pitt isn't perfect but she is a caring mom.