Angels in America

Tonight we went to see our first evening out of two of the play Angels in America played by Toneelgroep Amsterdam. A very intense play, featuring some of the best dutch and flemish actors. An empty stage with two big projections in the background and a soundtrack by David Bowie . It really was beautiful and emotional, much more intense than the series on dvd (which we also appreciated a lot). Tomorrow we will see the second half.



"Set in New York City in the mid-1980s, Act One of Millennium Approaches introduces us to the central characters. As the play opens, Louis Ironson, a neurotic, gay Jew learns his lover, Prior Walter, has AIDS. As the play and Prior's illness progress, Louis becomes unable to cope and moves out. Meanwhile, closeted homosexual Mormon and Republican law clerk Joe Pitt is offered a major promotion by his mentor, the McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn. Joe doesn't immediately take the job because he feels he has to check with his Valium-addicted, agoraphobic wife, Harper, who is unwilling to move. Unbeknownst to Joe, Roy is himself deeply closeted and, as Roy himself discovers later, has AIDS.

As the seven-hour play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who proclaim him to be a prophet; Joe finds himself struggling to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis struggles with his guilt about leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe; Harper's mental health deteriorates as she realizes that Joe is gay; Joe's mother, Hannah, moves to New York to attempt to look after Harper and meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah's son; Harper begins to separate from Joe whom she has depended upon and find strength she was unaware of; and Roy finds himself in the hospital, reduced to the companionship of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, a former drag queen and Prior's best friend, who meanwhile has to deal with Louis's constant demands for updates on Prior's health.

The play is deliberately performed so that the moments requiring special effects often show their theatricality. Most of the actors play multiple characters (e.g., the actress playing Prior's nurse also appears as the Angel). There are heavy Biblical references and references to American society, as well as some fantastical scenes including voyages to Antarctica and Heaven, as well as key events happening in San Francisco and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park".