A Note on Angels in America at the National, 2018
I wrote the review on Angels in America broadcast live from the National Theater in England after I saw it around a year ago.
Angels in America is an epic piece of literature brought to the stage currently at the National Theatre in England. This new production of Angels in America was an ode to New York liberalism in it’s most heartfelt ways. With true purpose driven acting, great direction, and a sort of surreal stage design, this was a unbelievable theater experience.
It’s not difficult these days to get an idea of what the New York Rat Race is like from pop culture. From movies like Midnight Cowboy, to Annie Hall, to Wall Street, you see generations of different New York characters trying to stay afloat. This play shows a lot more of the same, only unlike most others it captures a blunt essence of this taxing environment. At the same time, this particular production spells things out and is very plotty. Thus attempting to make clear the 1980’s context for it’s 21st century British audience.
The story chronicles a group of lost souls through the 1980’s AIDS crisis in a New York. These people feel abandoned by a successful Reagan administration and frankly, God.
Each character represents a clear identity that plays a part in this political representation eagerly shouting, "This is how it really is!” in New York. Capturing a heightened sub culture of people who live anything but a content life, they beg the question, “Why do life anywhere else when you can get right to the point of suffering in the Big Apple?”
Louis Ironson, played by Scottish actor James McArdle, is Jewish/Zionist by heritage, and not by spiritual faith. The play demonstrates this theme throughout the story of contradicting past and present. Opening with the burial of Ironson’s grandmother by a Rabbi saying, “She was the type of Yiddish woman from Eastern Europe that won’t be around for much longer.” The play gestures that the spiritual nature of religion is heading out in this modern Jewish community.
Louis is a man of subtlety and depth amazingly portrayed here by the actor James McArdle. Louis is gay and confidently out of the closet—but he is neither of the two extremes of gay I have most commonly seen in pop culture entertainment.
Louis works as a clerk at a law firm and has a flamboyant partner. However the nuance is that he is not merely the straight (gay) man to his comedically eccentric lover. He is a domesticated gay man at a time where this was not always a relaxed topic in many households—and he is still very convicted in his beliefs and openly in touch with his sensibilities.
Louis has been in a serious relationship with Prior Walter (Andrew Garfield) for four years. Walter is a flamboyant character who it comes across has had to sacrifice much to define who he is. Because of this he appears to have simplified his life and is a powerful and magnetic character. Walter is also the first person the play presents as having AIDS. He shows a graphic KS mark (noticeable marks, normally the sign of the disease) to his boyfriend Louis in their profound and thought provoking introductory scene where Prior has just gotten back from the doctor to find he has the disease.
Walter soon gets put in a hospital when side affects become unbearable and things continue to spiral downward. Their relationship explodes when Louis, having to care for his dying partner, decides to take off and try to save his own mental livelihood.
If Louis Ironson and Prior Walter are the protagonists of Angels in America, the story comes complete with a complex tragic villain by the face of Roy Cohn (Nathan Lane). Cohn is the archetypal power lawyer of New York City, having been a key advisor to Joseph McCarthy in the early 1950's anti-communist brigade. Based off a famous historical character, Cohn is full of contradictions. He prosecuted gays when Dwight Eisenhower declared it illegal early in his career, and it is revealed early in the play that he turns out to be a homosexual himself when he is told by his doctor of 50 years that he has AIDS. He responds to the diagnosis denying it, saying, "Weak Gay people have aids. I have clout, this is just cancer." He goes on to nearly have his doctor thrown in jail based on the news.
Then there is the Mormon couple Joe and Harper Pitt played amazingly by Russell Tovey and Denise Gough. Joe is a hopeful lawyer from Utah who the corrupt Roy Cohn takes a liking to. Everything seems to be alright for Joe, until it isn’t. His wife Harper, feels empty around her husband, which we soon see is on account of him being a closeted gay man. We find out he's known it himself for a long time, and with the characters of the story coming together he and his wife separate with him finding a relationship with Louis Ironson who coincidentally works at his building.
The play concludes with the lawyer Roy Cohn getting what was coming for him having done whatever it took to get to the top taking many innocent people down in the process. Joe and Harper Pitt being depressed, separated, but finally in search for truth. Prior Walter is still in the hospital and is now seeing Angels telling him his journey is far from over and his work is just now beginning.