I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m damned excited about this. I’m definitely a Tony Kushner fan (among the quotes that no one ever reads on the right-hand bar of this blog is one from Kushner). I saw part one of Angels in America on Broadway in the mid-eighties, and at the time I found the show funny, politically on-target, human and thrilling.
I’m curious how it’ll play now. New York City in the mid-eighties, for anyone who was even remotely paying attention to the AIDs crisis in the gay community, felt genuinely apocalyptic, and that feeling is very present in the play. But of course the world didn’t end (it never does), and I wonder if the tone won’t make it seem bizarre or overstated nowadays. Still, I’m looking forward to it..
Did you mean “apocalyptic”, there?
Whoops! Thanks, correction made.
I went to the performance of (I think) Part II in Charlotte NC in 1194? 95? I’m not sure. I do remember that there was a group of folks led by some religious leader and a city councilman who threatened to have the actors arrested for indecency, or public nudity or whatever the law was. I remember articles and editorials going on about how the nudity in this play was clearly designed to recruit our young people to this dispicable lifesyle (say it with a southern accent, folks!)
Fortunately, attorneys for the Charlotte Rep were on the game, found a sympathetic judge and got some sort of injunction or restraining order in place so that the play was not interrupted by a large group of folks standing up and gasping at the sight of a damn penis, storming out of the theater as cops storm in to arrest the actor. Interestingly, there was a row of 10 empty seats next to me. I guess they didn’t even bother to watch the play.
For those who haven’t seen it, the scene in question takes place in a hospital room, and the main character is completely naked getting an exam or physical and the entire point is to demonstrate his complete and total vulnerability at this point in his life.
Recruitment my ass. There were no toasters on the way out of the theater.
I’m curious about this production as well. I don’t have cable, so hopefully someone will tape it for me.
I’m just hoping it won’t be terrible and ruin the reputation of the play for people who haven’t seen it. So many movie adaptatations of great plays serve to turn the public off to the play itself because they don’t do it justice. I really, really hope that doesn’t happen here. But I’ll definitely be watching.
I trust HBO enough to do a good job with it. Besides the cast is excellent, and it’s directed by Mike Nichols, whose first film was a screen adaptation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and he did an excellent job with that. So I wouldn’t be too worried about that, Amy.
I’m looking forward to it as well.
mid-80’s? don’t you mean 90’s?
Hey Amp, I’ve followed that link you mention – more than once. That’s a truly wonderful commencement speech by Mr. Kushner on the other end of it.
I’m almost afraid to say this, since I have not seen the play on-stage, yet have always been curious about it, given all the accolades it’s received. So far, for the first installment, I’ve found it surely interesting, with an excellent cast, and some situations and moments grab my attention. But it also seems, well, dated, old-school, whatever you want to call it, and some of the moments that probably were explosive and dynamic on stage were less so on television. This is the risk of topicality, because people who seem to be at the center of the world RIGHT NOW, will fade into oblivion within a decade, and will become vague memories in another decade. Even our perspective on AIDS itself has changed; today, it looks like one of the first “modern” diseases, one which is resistant to available medications, but now, there are others, SARS being the most recent.
I’ll see the rest, and wait to see if the transcendant moments (that others talk about) materialize.