Angels in America

Angels in America

Study Guide

Part One: Millennium Approaches

Act One: Bad News

1. Act One, Scene 1
2. Act One, Scene 2
3. Act One, Scene 3
4. Act One, Scene 4
5. Act One, Scene 5
6. Act One, Scene 6
7. Act One, Scene 7
8. Act One, Scene 8
9. Act One, Scene 9

Act Two: In Vitro

1. Act Two, Scene 1
2. Act Two, Scene 2
3. Act Two, Scene 3
4. Act Two, Scene 4
5. Act Two, Scene 5
6. Act Two, Scene 6
7. Act Two, Scene 7
8. Act Two, Scene 8
9. Act Two, Scene 9
10. Act Two, Scene 10

Act Three: Not-Yet-Conscious, Foward Dawning

1. Act Three, Scene 1
2. Act Three, Scene 2
3. Act Three, Scene 3
4. Act Three, Scene 4
5. Act Three, Scene 5
6. Act Three, Scene 6
7. Act Three, Scene 7

Part Two: Perestroika

Act One: Spooj

1. Act One, Scene 1
2. Act One, Scene 2
3. Act One, Scene 3
4. Act One, Scene 4
5. Act One, Scene 5
6. Act One, Scene 6

Act Two: The Epistle

1. Act Two, Scene 1

Act Three: Borborygmi

1. Act Three, Scene 1
2. Act Three, Scene 2
3. Act Three, Scene 3
4. Act Three, Scene 4
5. Act Three, Scene 5

Act Four: John Brown's Body

1. Act Four, Scene 1
2. Act Four, Scene 2
3. Act Four, Scene 3
4. Act Four, Scene 4
5. Act Four, Scene 5
6. Act Four, Scene 6
7. Act Four, Scene 7
8. Act Four, Scene 8
9. Act Four, Scene 9

Act Five: Heaven, I'm in Heaven

1. Act Five, Scene 1
2. Act Five, Scene 2
3. Act Five, Scene 3
4. Act Five, Scene 4
5. Act Five, Scene 5
6. Act Five, Scene 6
7. Act Five, Scene 7
8. Act Five, Scene 8
9. Act Five, Scene 9
10. Act Five, Scene 10

Epilogue: Bethesda

1. Perestroika Epilogue

Characters

The Angel

Emily

The Eskimo

Ethel Rosenberg

Hannah Porter Pitt

Harper Amaty Pitt

Henry

Joseph Porter Pitt

Louis Ironson

The Man in the Park

Martin Heller

Mr. Lies

Norman Arriaga AKA: Belize

Prior I

Prior II

Prior Walter

Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz

Roy Cohn

Sister Ella Chapter

The Voice

The Woman in the South Bronx

Major Themes

Angels in America is in many ways a play about conversion.The experience of HIV illness is often conceived as involving a conversion of the self, and Prior's discovery that he has AIDS is depicted in part as making him a new person: I'm a lessionnaire". The Angel's visitation to Prior takes the form of a mission of conversion:given a new identity, Prior is like Joseph Smith, to become Prophet of a new dispensation. Indeed, in the course of the play all its characters undergo startling shifts in identity. Hannah is not only physically transplanted to New York but becomes "noticeably different--she looks like a New Yorker. Roy , who clings tenaciously to his professional status a a lawyer,is disbarred just before his death. Harper moves through a period of dysfunction to strike out on her own, choosing "the real San Francisco, on earth," with its "unspeakable beauty" (Kruger 4).

Kushner uses split scenes to make more explicit the contrapuntal relationship between these seemingly disconnected narrative worlds. Roy's meeting with Joe, to discuss the junior attorney's future as a "Roy-Boy" in Washington, occurs alongside the scene in which Louis is sodomized in the Central Park Rambles by a leather clad mama's boy.Louis's mini-symposium at the coffee shop is simultaneous with Prior's medical checkup at an outpatient clinic. Dreams,ghosts, and a flock of dithering, hermaphroditic angels are also used to break through the play's realistic structure, to conjoin seemingly disparate characters, and to reveal the poetic resonances and interconnectedness of everyday life (McNulty 4).

Study Questions

1. Many of the gay characters struggle with the question of how their sexuality should be, and several come out in different ways during the course of the play. Discuss the meaning of the closet — are closeted characters different from uncloseted ones? What implications does coming out have for self and community?
2. "It's law not justice," Joe tells Louis during their final breakup. Discuss the themes of law and justice as they appear in the play. Is Joe correct that the two are separate entities? Or does the play encourage a more visionary potential of the law?
3. Belize stands out as exceptionally compassionate and good, yet at times seems two-dimensional. Which view is correct? Is Belize a virtuous stereotype or a complex moral authority?
4. What does the subtitle "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" suggest? What national themes are evident in the plays? What is the relationship between "gay" and "national"?
5. Perestroika was the term for Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of political and economic reform in the Soviet Union. In what ways does the play represent the possibility of perestroika in America? Is this an appropriate title for part two?
6. Choosing at least two examples (The Rosenberg Trial, The San Francisco Earthquake, Chernobyl, The Reagan Administration), analyze the role of history in the plays. Does Kushner more or less depict events as they happened? If not, what dramatic and thematic purposes does he serve by shading the facts?
7. As a "fantasia," Angels in America is a major departure from prevailing theatrical realism, with detours into the religious and the supernatural — angels, ghosts, apparitions, and visions appear over and over. What effect do these fantastical elements have on the play as a whole? Go beyond a simple analysis of plot to consider the implications for characters, messages, and themes.
8. Is there any connection between the Angel, and Mr. Lies.

Additional Resources

• Larger Than Life - A review of Angels in America by Tony Buchsbaum.
• HBO Interview with Tony Kusher

Works Cited

• Garner, Stanton B. "Angels in America: The Millennium and Postmodern Memory," in Approaching the Millenium, Essays on Angels in America, edited by Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger, University of Michigan Press, 1987: pp.173-84.

• Glenn, Lane A.. "Angels in America." Drama for Students. Gale, 1999.

• Kruger, Steven F. "Identity and Conversion in Angels in America."in Approaching the Millennium: Essays on "Angels in America." edited by Deborah R. Geis and Steven F.Kruger, University of Michigan Press, 1997: pp. 151-69.

• Layman, Bruccoli Clark. "Tony Kushner,"in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 228: Twentienth Century American Dramatists, Second Series. Edited by Christopher J. Wheatley.

• McNutty, Charles. "Angels in America: Tony Kushner's Theses on the Philosophy of History." Modern Drama 39,no.1 (Spring 1996): 84-96.

• Meisner, Natalie. Messing with the Idyllic: The Performance of Femininity in Kushner's Angels in America. The Yale Journal of Criticism 16,no.1 (2003): 177-189.

• Quinn, John R. "Corpus Juris Tertium: Redemptive Jurisprudence in Angels in America." Theatre Journal 48,no.1 (March 1996): 79-90.

• Trilling, Lionel, et. al. Bloom’s Period Studies: Modern American Drama. Chelsea House Publishers, 2005.

• Kushner, Tony. Angels in America. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995.