ANGELS IN AMERICA. To 22 July.
London
ANGELS IN AMERICA
by Tony Kushner
Lyric Hammersmith To 22 July 2007
Tue-Sun 7pm Mat Sat & Sun 1.309pm
Captioned 21 July 1.30pm & 7pm
Part 1: Millennium Approaches
Runs 3hr 30min Two intervals
Part 2: Perestroika
Runs 3hr 35min One interval
Both parts in repertory
TICKETS: 08700 500511
www.lyric.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 1 July
Giant plays seem lessened this side of the millennium divide.
When Tony Kushner’s huge two-parter premiered in 1991 San Francisco, it looked at the Reagan presidency and AIDS, which had coincided through the 1980s. Despite its millennial subtitle, it couldn’t know about the new century’s neo-conservatism and revised global perspective on America.
Kushner isn’t helpful as he takes his realistic situations ever-further into fantasy. The storylines start clearly. Harper Pitt, mentally unbalanced, leaves her husband, who’s torn between his marriage and the corrupt career-path his lawyer boss Roy Cohn pushes him along. Both men are self-denyingly homosexual. And openly gay Louis Ironson leaves his partner Prior Walter when the dark blooms of AIDS spread over Prior’s body.
Joseph’s and Prior’s paths are tracked through the two plays, counterpointed by Cohn’s isolated descent. But Cohn is by far the most interesting character, seeing sexuality in power-terms. So he self-defines as a heterosexual who sleeps with other men, threatening to sue anyone who uses the “H” word, dying with a fridge-full of AZT pills for personal use locked by his bedside.
Even by his own expansive standards, Kushner has about one-and-a-half plays’ material. The protagonists’ tracks are increasingly smudged over during Perestroika by fantasy scenes that lose contact between what’s happened and what’s been imagined, without it seeming worth the trouble of working out.
Each part begins with an extended speech by someone old who fears the new: a Rabbi and a Bolshevik. That’s the core theme of change addressed in the opening minutes. Though Daniel Kramer’s energetic production for Headlong Theatre (with Hammersmith and Glasgow Citizens’) is beautifully played, and though Soutra Gilmour’s set repeatedly reveals new perspectives, and has lighting grids descending for a climactic Angel appearance, though Charles Balfour’s lighting enhances the settings to disguise the fact that, often, most of the stage is unused, and creates distance between characters, or between them and the rest of the world, though Carolyn Downing’s soundscape contrasts intense stillness with sharp eruptions of urban traffic; despite all this the second play eventually dissolves into a series of speeches, as if the author doesn’t know how, let alone when, he’s made his point.
Belize/Mr Lies/Caleb/Angel Oceania: Obi Abili
Harper Amaty Pitt/Martin Heller/Angel Africanii: Kirsty Bushell
Prior Walter/The Man in the Park: Mark Emerson
Roy M Cohn/Prior 2/Angel Antarctica: Greg Hicks
Louis Ironson/Angel Australia: Adam Levy
Hannah Porter Pitt/Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz/Henry and ethel Rosenberg/Alekseii Anted Illuvianovich Prelapsarionov/Angel Asiatica: Ann Mitchell
The Angels/Emily/Sister Ella Chapter/The Woman in the South Bronx/Orrin/The Mormon Mother: Golda Rosheuvel
Joseph Porter Pitt/Prior 1/The Eskimo/The Mormon Father/The Angel Europa: Jo Stone-Fewings
Director: Daniel Kramer
Designer: Soutra Gilmour
Lighting: Charles Balfour
Sound: Carolyn Downing
Composers (Angel Music): John Rosheuvel, Golda Rosheuvel
Costume: Mark Bouman
Movement adviser: Ann Yee
Assistant costume: Mia Flodquist
Assistant director: Johanna Gruenhut
2007-07-03 12:24:51