Angels in America

I didn’t know if I could recommend a play here, but reading this one is how I first experienced it because it premiered in London. I hadn’t seen it yet, so I read its two monumental parts, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika,” on a typewritten marked-up rehearsal script someone had lent me.

Quite simply, Tony Kushner wrote THE play for my generation, a generation that lost probably half of itself to an awful plague most people, especially the government, ignored until it was too late. When my lover Jeffrey died, I went to the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park and wept… show more.

I found this to be a phenomenally original and imaginative dive into the tragic period of the AIDS epidemic.

I was gripped by the complex relationship between the different couples, the relationships between the characters, and “queerness” even if they were not. I learned about that dark period in American social history through the entwined lives of a few emotionally charged and engrossing characters.  

Angels in America was the first place I saw a fuller depiction of life with serious illness, and it blew my mind. Prior, who has AIDS, is arguably the main character. The focus doesn’t cut away from him the second things get very bad. Instead, we stay and see him through. I believe deeply in the power of seeing one’s darkest moments honestly reflected in art. I first discovered Angels through the amazing TV series with Al Pacino and Meryl Streep and it broke my heart into a thousand pieces. When I later read the plays, I was amazed at… show more.