Friday, September 16, 2011
'Angels In America,' 20 Years Later
NPR: Two decades ago, in 1991, the first part of an ambitious work of theater by playwright Tony Kushner took the stage in San Francisco. It was called Angels in America, and its two parts — Millennium Approaches and Perestroika — clocked in at an epic seven hours.
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I think that this article is so interesting in how they approached the show 20 years later. I have never seen Angels in America, but I have read it and I think that it really is a great and powerful piece. I like looking at it from Kushner's perspective and how he about how things have changed over the past two decades. It was intriguing to see that when he wrote it he was looking and thinking more in the sense of the impending Millennia and how people believed something big would happen. I like that though he is happy that his play is reaching the younger generation, I think that it is completely endearing that at times he is a little shocked by how much the school system lets teachers get away with. However, that is definitely only in certain places. Because, in my high school there would have been no way that we would have been aloud to have put on this show. But I hope that as times progress that people in places where I grew up could be more exposed to shows like this in order to, if anything, at least expand their horizons a bit. Angels in America was revolutionary for its time and is still incredibly pertinent and compelling now. I think that it will continue to touch and affect people for many years to come.
Interesting to see this article show up the same week as the article about play revivals: Angels in America IMO is very much a victim of the notion that a play's success is related to the time it premiered. Reading Angels in America now seems a bit dated. While homophobia is still alive and well what I saw as the most important aspect of the show is the parallels between AIDS and the religious believes of an apocalypse. Though science hasn't discovered a cure yet, I understand it's not that far off. AIDs has shifted from a pandemic that affects homosexual communities to a global pandemic: AIDs now largely associated with impoverished 3rd world countries and how global wealth and humanitarian aid is dispersed. That is not to say that drama between the characters in Kushner's play will cease to be visceral and compelling but rather their fear may be hard to understand by future audiences.
I think Angels will be taught in schools and universities for a long time. Hopefully as the nightmares in Angels; homophobia, conservatism, greed, and AIDs; become more impotent they play will be performed less and less but be studied more and more as a historical analogy. The text will teach future genearations what the conditions were like not only when the play was set (1980s) but when Kushner wrote it (1990s) and his fears and hopes for the new millennium.
Kushner's remarks about the impending events that are taken lightly in his plays becoming serious realities are an eery reminder that the people of the world have some serious issues to deal with right now. This point also provides one more reason to produce these plays today. Kushner definitely has a point in noting that conventions have changed in terms of what young people know about and talk about. I've had a similar conversation with my parents before. I think, for the most part, that it's great that people are generally more open about these issues. I went to a high school that absolutely could have produced this play, but I do understand the apprehension that other high school constituencies feel. I think the college setting is certainly the best one in which to produce and study these plays because students of college age tend to have more maturity and, sometimes, more personal experience when it comes to the issues at hand than they would have had in high school. We college students are also of the age at which we can really learn from this play and use it as a tool to speak to our peers. It's great to look back and see that these plays have become even more relevant as time has passed.
This play was and still is absolutely brilliant. When it was first published it was so controversial. The issues discussed by Kushner were not talked about at all and were shocking. Today, even though we may not be as shocked when reading it, these issues are still relevant today and we need to be aware of that. I heard a lot of people say they didn't understand why Angels was being put on when it came to New York last year and I don't understand comments like that. AIDS still exists and there is still homophobia. Even though the play takes place in the 90's, the topics of the play still matter and we need to not forget that.
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