Production Reviews

“Marching Out Of The Closet” by Frank Rich November of 1992

As a political statement, "Angels in America," a two-part, seven-hour epic subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes," is nothing less than a fierce call for gay Americans to seize the strings of power in the war for tolerance and against AIDS. But this play, by turns searing and comic and elegiac, is no earthbound ideological harangue. Though set largely in New York and Washington during the Reagan-Bush 80's, "Angels in America" sweeps through locales as varied as Salt Lake City and the Kremlin, and through high-flying styles ranging from piquant camp humor to religious hallucination to the ornate poetic rage of classic drama.
None of the other performances are in this league, although Mr. Mantello's cowardly Louis shows a lot of promise and K. Todd Freeman sizzles in the comic role of a one-time drag queen who ends up as Cohn's private nurse. Among the rest, the only one that does damage comes from Ms. Mace, whose lost wife exudes brash sitcom brio rather than the disorientation and vulnerability that might make the play's one major female character touching.
When the going gets truly heavy in Part 2, Mr. Kushner must share responsibility. The writing retreats to conventionality as he sorts out the domestic conflicts of his major characters. Long debates about the Reagan ethos and the hypocrisies of gay Republicans seem unexceptional after this year's Presidential campaign. But just when "Angels in America" seems to bog down in the naturalism and polemics Mr. Kushner otherwise avoids, it gathers itself up for a stirring cosmic denouement in which Mr. Spinella's Prior, having passed through a spiritual heaven and five years of physical hell, addresses the audience directly from the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. Envisioning a new age of universal perestroika in which "the world only spins forward," Prior foretells a future in which "this disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all," in which "we will not die secret deaths anymore," in which love and "more life" will be the destiny of "each and every one."
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Embracing All Possibilities in Art and Life by Frank Rich May 1993

But even as Mr. Kushner portrays an America of lies and cowardice to match Cohn's cynical view, he envisions another America of truth and beauty, the paradise imagined by both his Jewish and Mormon characters' ancestors as they made their crossing to the new land. "Angels in America" not only charts the split of its two central couples but it also implicitly sets its two gay men with AIDS against each other in a battle over their visions of the future. While the fatalistic, self-loathing Cohn ridicules gay men as political weaklings with "zero clout" doomed to defeat, the younger, equally ill Prior sees the reverse. "I am a gay man, and I am used to pressure," he says from his sick bed. "I am tough and strong." Possessed by scriptural visions he describes as "very Steven Spielberg" even when in abject pain, Prior is Mr. Kushner's prophet of hope in the midst of apocalypse.
The entire cast, which includes Kathleen Chalfant and Jeffrey Wright in a variety of crisply observed comic cameos, is first rate. Ms. Harden's shattered, sleepwalking housewife is pure pathos, a figure of slurred thought, voice and emotions, while Mr. Grant fully conveys the internal warfare of her husband, torn between Mormon rectitude and uncontrollable sexual heat. When Mr. Wolfe gets both of the play's couples on stage simultaneously to enact their parallel, overlapping domestic crackups, "Angels in America" becomes a wounding fugue of misunderstanding and recrimination committed in the name of love.
What has really affected "Angels in America" during the months of its odyssey to New York, however, is not so much its change of directors as Washington's change of Administrations. When first seen a year or so ago, the play seemed defined by its anger at the reigning political establishment, which tended to reward the Roy Cohns and ignore the Prior Walters. Mr. Kushner has not revised the text since -- a crony of Cohn's still boasts of a Republican lock on the White House until the year 2000 -- but the shift in Washington has had the subliminal effect of making "Angels in America" seem more focused on what happens next than on the past.
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Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika Review by Mark Fisher
May 3, 2007

What also sets the play apart is its audacious mix of theatricality, philosophy and poetry. That explains how, despite its lack of resolution, "Millennium Approaches" was a hit two years before Kushner completed the second part.
American-born Kramer has all these aspects within his grasp, presenting an unceasingly fluid seven hours of theater played out on Soutra Gilmour's open, elemental set. The director understands the way Kushner soars from soap opera to metaphysics to paint something majestic from the simple building blocks of human relationships and the way the juxtaposition and interlocking of scenes is inherently theatrical. So too are the surreal interventions of angels, mannequins and long-dead ancestors. Kramer, who directed recent West End revivals of "Bent" makes you accept everything in this theater of dreams.
He couldn't do this without his actors, of course, and he has assembled a flawless company. Roy M. Cohn, the fictional version of the real-life political fixer, is a gift of a part, played by Greg Hicks with a rasping, amphibian creepiness that's strangely compelling. Likewise, Jo Stone-Fewings brings emotional complexity to the role of Joseph Porter Pitt, the closeted gay Mormon, revealing the callous contradictions behind the nice-guy exterior.
Rest of the cast is equally strong, whether it's the shape-shifting Ann Mitchell, switching from Jewish icon to Mormon matriarch, bleached blond Mark Emerson bringing dry wit to Prior Walter, the AIDS patient with a visionary imagination, or Kirsty Bushell, a tremendously deadpan Harper Amaty Pitt, the delusional young wife in a sexless marriage. With otherworldly appearances from a sonorous Golda Rosheuvel and a striking Obi Abili, plus Adam Levy's charming Louis Ironson, the cast creates a world which, even after seven hours, it is a wrench to escape.
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Theatre Review (Boston) by Greg Hard February 1, 2008

Even though it takes place in the 1980s, the play's themes - mainly human frailty, moral choices, political corruption, and human prejudices - all stand the test of time to this day.
The acting is spectacular throughout, especially by Bree Elrod and Tyler Reilly who deliver the best performances of the night. Richard McElvain's performance as Roy Cohn is angry and passionate enough, but it lacks the humanity of the others. Susanne Nitter does a fine job as Joe's mother, Hannah, and as Ethel Rosenberg, Roy's deceased enemy.
The scenery is sublimely minimalist. A few carefully placed pieces of furniture on a background that looks like the inside of an aluminum can, with very well done lighting design, are all that is needed. Kushner's writing and the passion with which the actors deliver the text stand on their own, requiring no extraneous props or scenery to be passionate and moving.
Angels in America is a must-see play. Despite the twenty years since its release, it rings true in today's political and social climate. The relationships it depicts, and its themes of human frailty, mortality, moral choices, and political corruption, all transcend time.

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Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes Part One: Millennium Approaches Review by Chicago Critic April 9, 2006

This amazing show is so engrossing, so filled with rich lyrical language and emotional performances that you’ll be on the edge of your seat totally transfixed with this epic drama. Listen to the text, see both parts separately then see them on the same day to get the complete message of this tremendous play. Kushner has much to say and Graney’s production gives it clarity with a steady mounting dramatic tension that engages us throughout.
The cast was splendid, especially Mechelle Moe as Harper, Kurt Ehrmann as Roy Cohn and Scott Bradley as Prior. These performers left it all out on the stage as they exuded the angst, fear and pain associated with their characters.
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