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Angels in America: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox play | |||
| name = Angels in America: Millennium Approaches | |||
| image = Angels-in-america-04.jpg | |||
| image_size = | |||
| caption = Image from the HBO production | |||
| writer = [[Tony Kushner]] | |||
| characters = Prior Walter<br>[[Roy Cohn]]<br>Joe Pitt<br>Harper Pitt<br>Hannah Pitt<br>Louis Ironson<br>Belize<br>[[Ethel Rosenberg]]<br>Homeless Woman<br>Angel | |||
| setting = New York City, Salt Lake City and elsewhere, 1985–1986 | |||
| premiere = May 1991 | |||
| place = [[w:Eureka Theatre Company]]<br>San Francisco, California | |||
| orig_lang = English | |||
| genre = Drama | |||
}} | |||
{{Infobox play | |||
| name = Angels in America: Perestroika | |||
| image = | |||
| image_size = | |||
| caption = | |||
| writer = [[Tony Kushner]] | |||
| characters = Prior Walter<br>[[Roy Cohn]]<br>Joe Pitt<br>Harper Pitt<br>Hannah Pitt<br>Louis Ironson<br>Belize<br>[[Ethel Rosenberg]]<br>Homeless Woman<br>Angel | |||
| setting = New York City and elsewhere, 1986–1990 | |||
| premiere = November 8, 1992 | |||
| place = [[w:Mark Taper Forum]]<br>Los Angeles, California | |||
| orig_lang = English | |||
| genre = Drama | |||
}} | |||
'''''Angels in America''''' is a 1991 play in two parts by [[Tony Kushner]] that examines of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. | |||
==Factual Information== | ==Factual Information== | ||
According to Jacobus, Kushner was surprised that both liberals and conservatives liked the play because Kushner thought that it attacked many of the conservative views (1636). | |||
==Biography== | |||
| Line 49: | Line 79: | ||
====Act Two: The Epistle==== | ====Act Two: The Epistle==== | ||
#[[Perestroika 2.1|Act Two, Scene 1]] | #[[Perestroika 2.1|Act Two, Scene 1]] | ||
====Act Three: Borborygmi==== | ====Act Three: Borborygmi==== | ||
#[[Perestroika 3.1|Act Three, Scene 1]] | #[[Perestroika 3.1|Act Three, Scene 1]] | ||
| Line 82: | Line 113: | ||
==Characters== | ==Characters== | ||
[[ | [[The Angel]] | ||
[[ | [[Emily]] | ||
[[ | [[The Eskimo]] | ||
[[ | [[Ethel Rosenberg]] | ||
[[Hannah Porter Pitt]] | [[Hannah Porter Pitt]] | ||
[[ | [[Harper Amaty Pitt]] | ||
[[ | [[Henry]] | ||
[[ | [[Joseph Porter Pitt]] | ||
[[ | [[Louis Ironson]] | ||
[[The Man in the Park]] | [[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 | [[The Voice]] | ||
[[The Woman in the South Bronx]] | [[The Woman in the South Bronx]] | ||
[[ | [[Belize]] | ||
==Major Themes== | ==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). | |||
==Major Symbols== | ==Major Symbols== | ||
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==Influences== | ==Influences== | ||
The biggest influences on this play would defiantly have to be American society. Kushner brings up many problems that he has with the country. Form his problems with President Regan to the discrimination of people in American society. | |||
==Study Questions== | |||
#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? | |||
#"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? | |||
#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? | |||
#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"? | |||
#[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika <i>Perestroika</i>] 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? | |||
#Choosing at least two examples ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Rosenberg The Rosenberg Trial], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1906_earthquake The San Francisco Earthquake], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl Chernobyl], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_administration 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? | |||
#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. | |||
#Is there any connection between [[the Angel]], and [[Mr. Lies]]. If there is a connection, is it a friendly one? | |||
==Additional Resources== | ==Additional Resources== | ||
*[http://www.januarymagazine.com/artcult/angelsinam.html Larger Than Life] - A review of'' Angels in America'' by Tony Buchsbaum. | |||
*[http://www.hbo.com/films/angelsinamerica/cast/kushner_interview.html HBO Interview with Tony Kusher] | |||
==Works Cited== | ==Works Cited== | ||
*Trilling, Lionel, et. al. ''Bloom’s Period Studies: Modern American Drama''. Chelsea House Publishers, 2005 | {{Refbegin}} | ||
* 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. | |||
* Kushner, Tony. ''Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes''. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995. | |||
* 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. | |||
* Jacobus, Lee A., Ed. ''The Beford Introduction to Drama.'' 3rd Ed. Boston: Bedford, 1997. | |||
{{Refend}} | |||
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