I just got done watching the first part of Angels in America with my mother of all people and I’d be interested in hearing the reactions of others to it. I’m a little less than sober right now so I’ll post my own review later, but my one sentence reaction would be “Fucked up, but in a really good way”
I really enjoyed it. I read the play last year (and actually had to do a scene from it in an acting class), and have been looking forward to it on HBO for some time.
Too tired to say anything else now. Bed. g’nite.
The only thing I didn’t care for was Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson’s cameos, which smacked of “Oooooh, look what I can do!”
Other than that, depressingly fabulous. Or fabulously depressing.
I’m a pretty literal guy. I could easily do without whatever the angels, the travel agent, etc. are supposed to represent. Just tell the goddamn story. The ending just annoyed me, so I was relieved to see that it has a second part.
The dilemma of the Mormon is interesting: a man trapped in the dogma of his church and in denial of what he is (while at the same time realizing that he’s in denial) is a fairly hefty role to undertake. I also enjoyed Pacino’s character’s spiel about why he’s “not a homosexual”. It’s preaching by the writer, but done well.
It appears that there is a six-part series of the same name starting tonight. What’s that all about?
Kushner’s stage directions require that Hannah and the rabbi be played by the ssame actress. I’ll have to go look at my copy of the plays to check about the other roles played by Streep and Thompson.
I thought the first play,Millennium Approaches was brilliantly done. It’s very rare that a film can improve on the theatrical experience but Nichols has done it. I’m looking forward to seeing Perestroika next Sunday.
HBO is showing the play in two 3-hour plays as the original production was staged, and it is also showing AiA in 6 one-hour chapters.
Painful, emotionally draining, wonderful. I’ve elaborated in my own thread I started Friday.
I have it right here. Belize and Mr. Lies are to be played by the same actor.
The man in the park is to be the same as Prior.
Henry, Roy’s Doctor, is to be played by the same person playing Hannah which should’ve been Streep, but wasn’t.
Emily, the nurse, is to be the same as The Angel (i.e. Thompson).
“Martin Heller, a Reagan Admin Justice Dept flackman” (was he the guy who met with Joe and Roy in the restaurant?), was supposed to be played by the same as Harper but wasn’t.
Prior’s 1&2 (the ghosts of the dead Prior’s) were supposed to be played by the actors playing Joe and Roy respectively, but weren’t.
Eskimo - Joe.
I guess I’m the only person in America who is not moved beyond all reckoning by this play. I haven’t seen them on stage but I have read them each at least twice and I just never got why they were so revelatory. I just got done watching part 1 (and I will watch part 2) and it’s not like a hated it or anything but I still am left wondering why it is that people report these amazingly deep reactions.
Maybe it’s from spending the time in question as a relatively callow youth (I was 10 at the start of the Reagan “administration” and 18 at its end). Maybe it’s from being in the Midwest and largely shielded from AIDS and completely shielded from the day-to-day impact of the epidemic. Maybe I’m just impervious to this particular play; The Normal Heart moved me to tears when I read it. But I just don’t get it.
No, you’re not the only one, Otto, When you compare Angels to a play like Streetcar Named Desire, the former comes up short. Period. Simply put, Angels does not fulfill its premise. How could it? Its reach exceeds its grasp. Worthy? Absolutely. But after all the business of the heavenly messenger, the audience expects authentic revelation, earthly and spiritual ( notice I don’t say religious). But that eludes Kushner. The play is not the second coming of Christ–it has some excellent scenes, an ambitious overview of history (but how easy a target is Roy Cohn and Reagan!!) and some genuine things on its mind. But it is a compromised work, dramaturgically. Of course, it’s noteworthy handling of queer politics, AIDS, Reaganism and closeted gays made it seem very fashionable and au courant when it was first produced. But, personally, while watching the film last night, I felt the sexual politics, concerns and stereotypes were already as dated as the heavy-breathing sexuality of A Streetcar Named Desire or Picnic, for example. The horrific events of 9/11 have superseded the ideology of queer politics in the national consciousness with the more urgent and global consideration of Islamic Fundamentalism and Terrorism.
It will be very interesting to see how posterity regards the play.
I thought the first HOUR was great. It’s all I watched so far, but already packed with humor, sadness, doubt, poltics, spirtuality, humanity without feeling cramped.
The scene between Pacino and Cromwell was riveting, in the true sense of the word – I was riveted. I thought Pacino’s balance between his pride and his fear, who he is and who he wants to be set against Cromwell’s need to be honest yet tactful was so perfectly written and acted. It just doesn’t get better than that.
My thought at the end of the first hour: “I’m glad this still has 5 whole hours left.”
Mainly, I thought it was just so “human” that I didn’t even think of it as about gay people or AIDS. To me it was about doubt/pride/fear/guilt/decisions/honesty, and that’s probably why its been respected for so long.
Well, as for me, I was 28 and in New York in 1985, when the play takes place; so I was in the midst of all that and have lost friends to AIDS . . .
As for Kushner’s stage directions about Emma Thompson and Meryl Streep’s multiple roles, I think it was a mistake on his part—especially with star actresses. Any trick casting that takes you out of the play to go, “wha—huh?” is an error in judgment.
But when he wrote the stage directions for the play he wasn’t dealing with star actresses in the parts.
. . . So they shouldn’t have followed those stage directions, except I’m sure Emma and Meryl were more than anxious to show off their acting chops. Problem is, it didn’t really work. Meryl’s rabbi was just weird and creepy, and Emma’s homeless woman was just a bad Lilly Tomlin imitation.
Other than that, though, I loved it and am looking forward to Part II.
I didn’t realize that was Meryl as the Rabbi at all. I thought the rabbi was weird and creepy but I didn’t realize it was her.
I thought the accent sounded a little forced, but I don’t know anyone with a very strong yiddish (or jewish) accent like that so it was believable to me.
I suspected it was a younger actor in the make-up, but I wouldn’t have guaranteed it, and I would never have guessed it was Meryl Streep.
I agree with what you say about casting though, Eve. I’m not sure what Kushner’s original point was in the multiple roles, and it doesn’t seem like something you have to adhere to if its going to be distracting.
I was so anxious to see this movie, but I’m going to have to stick with the hourly installments, as it comes on too late for me to stick with it for three hours.
I’m loving it so far, and the multiple parts thing doesn’t bug me. They’re both great actresses, and although I haven’t seen Emma’s part yet, Meryl as a rabbi was totally convincing to me.
Pacino’s best work to date, as far as I’m concerned. His scene with the doctor was very powerful.
I was 23 and in Southern California in 1985, so I was in the midst of the West Coast version of the Great Dying and remember with great anger the indifference of the Reagan administration toward AIDS. I don’t think any of us who lost people during that time can ever forgive him.
AiA does indeed reach for a profundity that it does not quite grasp, but its period setting does not in any way diminish the impact of people’s reactions to the onset of the crisis or Reagan’s culpability.
There’s actually a term in acting for “really forced somewhere-other-than-here stock accents”- the term is
A Meryl Streep Performance
and for some inexplicable reason they all get raves.
I’m really curious to see what they did for the final act. Kushner has changed how it’s done on stage several times (I don’t think he’s quite happy with it either) and I’m curious to see what he did with a budget and on-location filming. I’m also curious to see what photo 27 on this page is all about since it doesn’t resemble anything I remember from the play.
I’ll use spoilers for those who haven’t read AiA-Perestroika . I’m curious to see if they included the scene that’s used in some productions but not in others in which
Roy Cohn, submerged in pig feces, takes God’s case by phone from hell.
And, the scene I’m really looking forward to because it’s one of my favorite scenes from any play is the one in which
Ethel Rosenberg helps the secular Louis say kaddish for Roy Cohn (though the historian in me wonders if Ethel Rosenberg would even have known kaddish- she and Julius were as secular as Louis, though they felt their Jewishness a bit more after the revelation of the Holocaust- I also wonder if Kushner wrote the play assuming the innocence of the Rosenbergs, which has since been disproven fairly conclusively.
Has anybody seen the James Wood movie Citizen Cohn ? When it premiered I was surprised there wasn’t a lawsuit for plagiarism since much of it occurs as he is on his deathbed with AIDS being tormented by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg.
. . . by the way, everyone, it’s Julius Rosenberg.
Not that I’ve done a really close reading of the materials that have come out of the Kremlin since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but my understanding was that the documents tended to show that while Julius was a knowing and complicit participant in the plots, Ethel either didn’t know what was going on or knew very little and certainly not enough to warrant the death penalty. I do think Kushner wrote the play with at least the belief that Ethel didn’t deserve what she got; whether he believed in the complete innocence either of Julius or her I don’t know.
My friend and I watched the first three hours, continually saying, “What the…?” but not able to do anything but watch. Personally, I loved Emma Thompson as the New York nurse. Though I thought it was campy seeing Streep (an overrated actress if EVER there was one) and Thompson (if anything, underrated) in multiple roles, I liked it because it’s a send-up, just as male-to-female drag is a send-up. Seemed rather balanced to me in that way.
Bottom line, I definitely need to watch the last 3 hours b/c the first 3 ended very abruptly and I want to see how it all turns out. Glad to see Pacino can still artfully chew scenery with the best of 'em. Go Al.