|
Angels in America
by Tony Kushner
Director Daniel Kramer
Set Design Soutra Gilmour
Lighting Design Charles Balfour
Sound Design Carolyn Downing
Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith
Lyric Square, King Street, London W6 0QL
Call +44 (0) 8700 500 511 Tickets £9 - £27.00
Running times:
Part 1 Millennium Approaches 3 hrs 50 mins with 2 intermissions
Part 2 Perestroika 3 hrs 50 mins with 1 intermission
Through July, 2007
Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New
In 1993 Angels in America raised the roof of the National Theatre, and this fabulous piece of New York theatre, that so touched the zeitgeist, left Londoners ‘gob-smacked’ (dumbstruck) in awe and admiration.
As if in homage to its progenitor, and determined to be as shocking, this first full scale revival was thrust in front of the unsuspecting (if they haven’t seen it before) and the knowing (if they have) with all the frantic energy and hyper-active emotional extremism that the company could muster. Fast, episodic scenes, at times sharing and even competing for each other’s stage space.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tony Kushner delivers an extraordinary imagination, one which translates to a rare theatricality, and presents his director, Daniel Kramer on this occasion, with many gifts. The scenes in heaven in part 2 were particularly rich and lavish, and a fertile ground for most of the humour, with all the cast actually seeming more at home there than they were in their earthly lives in part 1.
The issues of the time, as they collided with the orthodoxy and conservatism of the Reagan era, were the fuel for the drama. Aids had burst upon the scene as the ‘gay plague’, with all its tragedies, and the Republican soul of the United States was being rocked by closet ‘ho-mo-sex-uals’ being outed in the process. The disease did not discriminate, unfortunately, and did not take prisoners then.
Today many of the tacky old moral hypocrisies seem dated. No doubt they have been replaced by new ones, but what was new and daring drama then seems overwritten now, and less important than it believed itself to be. There is just no longer a shock horror element to being discovered as gay, or any shame in having Aids.
Amazingly, the play is now a period piece, and as such it has a certain charm, but within seconds, the essential Angels in America, as if desperate to be relevant, became a raucous, frenetic cover version that went on and on and on. From the posing, cockney American of Greg Hicks, unable to fill the role of Roy M Cohn, one of theatre’s great grotesques, to the noisy, irritating Harper Amity Pitt of Kirsty Bushell, the experience became a trial and one watched with a certain indifference to the characters who were hard to believe and harder to relate to. So different from the first time around when the vulnerability of the protagonists made the impact so explosive.
Occasionally there were moments of personal depth as when the Mormon son phones his mother to tell her (agonisingly) that he is a ho-mo-sex-ual, and in perfect denial she tells him not to drink so much. But all too often, Mr Kramer allowed the ironies of the plot and characters’ lives to be subsumed in acting excesses. When a bit of gritty realism was needed, there was melodrama. When some physical cruelty was needed it looked like playfighting. There was plenty of gay soft porn on show, but even this began to look manipulative.
The hard road travelled in Millennium Approaches was given a sense of having been worthwhile for having given way to Perestroika. With its devastating Angel of Golda Rosheuvel in full cry, magnificent, predatory, thrillingly voiced, all powerful, the production was taken to its heights, giving Charles Balfour on lighting, Carolyn Downing on sound, Mr Kramer and all the creative team a playground they must have relished. This was extravagant and sumptuous theatre, unforgettable and worth the price of admission alone.
The company of eight players between them manage thirty characters, and there are some great characterisations there, and most had great moments. Ann Mitchell showed her award-winning credentials with a superbly drawn array of identities, and Obi Ibili brought wit, charm and great presence to all his roles, but I needed to witness his pain when Cohn relished using the ‘N’ word at him. There is no doubting the high level of commitment of all the actors.
I would counsel against seeing the two parts on one day, for after nearly eight hours with intermissions it is an epic and tiring journey for company and audience alike. Even Hamlet is usually well cut before it reaches us.
This millennium’s arrival has brought with it some agonising times of its own, signalling the need for a new Angels in America. To paraphrase James McNeill Whistler, a great American of a century ago, we must wait until, with the mark of the gods upon him, there comes among us again the chosen, who shall continue what has gone before. For the story is not complete.
Cue Mr Kushner.
Recommended
Saul Reichlin
London correspondent
Talk Theatre in Chicago Podcast
www.ChicagoCritic.com
28 June 2007
|
