About the work
Tony Kushner's two-part play „Angels in America" was premiered in San Francisco in 1991-92 — Part 1 „Millennium Approaches", Part 2 „Perestroika". The work is considered the most important American play of the 1990s and won two Pulitzer Prizes and six Tony Awards. A combined performance runs over seven hours.
Plot
New York 1985-86, during the Reagan era and the first AIDS epidemic. Several narrative strands interweave: Prior Walter, a young gay man, contracts AIDS; his lover Louis Ironson cannot bear the course of the illness and leaves him. Joe Pitt, a Mormon lawyer from Salt Lake City, struggles with his suppressed homosexuality, while his Valium-addicted wife Harper lives in delusion. Roy Cohn, a real historical figure (gay Republican lawyer, mentor to Reagan and Trump), suffering from AIDS but publicly denying his homosexuality, becomes Joe's mentor. Belize, a Black gay nurse, is Prior's best friend. The different fates cross: Louis meets Joe and they have a brief affair. Roy Cohn lies dying, nursed by Belize, hallucinating his former victims (Ethel Rosenberg, whose execution he forced). Prior in feverish visions is visited by an angel who declares him „prophet" of stagnation. In the closing scene of „Perestroika" — five years later, 1990 — Prior, Louis, Belize and Hannah (Joe's Mormon mother) sit at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. Prior, still living with AIDS, blesses the world: „More life. The Great Work begins."
Cultural significance
Angels in America is the most important work of American gay theatre and a defining model for late-twentieth-century political drama. Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation with Al Pacino (Roy Cohn), Meryl Streep (in four roles) and Justin Kirk (Prior) won eleven Emmys. Marianne Elliott's 2017 National Theatre production with Andrew Garfield (Prior) and Nathan Lane (Roy Cohn) was a global success transferred to Broadway. The fusion of political realism, magical realism and ecstatic poetry makes the work unique.