As Toronto gears up to host World Pride, Soulpepper remounts Tony Kushner’s 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning two-part play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Set in New York City in 1985 at the beginning of North America's AIDS epidemic, the two halves of the six-hour play — Millennium Approaches (Part 1) and Perestroika (Part 2) — can be seen on separate nights or one after another. Either way, the well-crafted script, stimulating production and fantastic cast keep the audience engaged so your attention remains on the content of performance rather than the length of it.
Kushner (whose screenplay for Spielberg’s Lincoln was nominated for an Oscar), took a degree in medieval literature, and in Angels in America he blends old-world mythological awe with modern American characters who find themselves in conflict — both internal and external — over their values and beliefs.
Albert Schultz, founding member and Artistic Director of Soulpepper, directs a stunning cast of eight, each playing multiple roles. Damien Atkins (Beatrice and Virgil) anchors the story in the role of Prior Walters; Soulpepper founding member Diego Matamoros (Idiot’s Delight) plays the loathsome Roy Cohn; Michelle Monteith (Of Human Bondage) and Mike Ross play a Mormon couple struggling with his sexuality, her mental health, and their faith.
Angels in America takes advantage of its length to explore numerous social fault lines including religion, politics, sexual orientation, and race relations. Kushner’s thoughtful and emotional treatment of these subjects remains powerful and affecting, but in the two decades since Angels in America premiered, a new generation of theatregoers has come along, and the frequent '80s references — President Reagan; the then newly-discovered hole in the ozone layer (no longer our central environmental concern); Perestroika (the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system which contributed to ending the Cold War) — lend a historical feel which may leave those younger than Generation X shrugging or reaching for their smart phones.
Even so, the ideas and emotions come through at every turn. Each three-hour part has two 15-minute intermissions, and each act of the play has its own personality — by turns thoughtful, emotional, whimsical, erotic, weird or startling — giving the audience a fresh start every hour. In theatre, length doesn’t matter: it’s how you use it that counts.
Angels in America plays at the Young Centre for Performing Arts until July 12.
Evan Andrew Mackay is a Toronto playwright and humorist who writes about culture and social justice.
