Angels in America.
I think Tony Kushner must have purged his soul when he wrote this masterpiece. This script reaches out to such a diverse arena that one can't watch it without somehow being moved by it. All the characters are flawed, all of them, and yet (save one) each of them strives for more of this thing called life, in all its wholeness, from the most remote element to the seemingly out of reach - even when the angels themselves appear to be hopeless, the humanity there insists it goes on.
T hat actually made me weep.
I suppose we'll be confounding the angels until we cease to exist.
I remember when AZT was first introduced. My good friend David was HIV positive and one of the first people I knew to get the drug. The only person for a n umber of years. The others I knew who were positive didn't have the luxury of his income and, as the script represented, had no access to the expensive pharmaceuticals. David found out he was positive thru a fluke. While in college, he'd participated i n a study one of his fellow students was working on, but then lost funding for, so all the lab samples went on ice. The student died (of cancer) and his work was later resurrected by another student, this time w/ full funding, and more specifically ge are d toward HIV (the original study was not). David proved positive. Happily, he is alive and thriving. Loves a man in Utah - yep, St. Lake City - and they see each other long-distance. No one's closeted, but they both have lives they are unwilling t o gi ve up. So they make the most of it.
So, was it the Angel's kiss that made Peter's Mama soften her Mormon heart?
I noted most of the cast were nominated for Golden Globes. I'm quite pleased with that.
Peter represented the homo who uses the hete ro to hide his reality. Sad for his wife that she actually loved him. It was with vicious glee that she took his credit card in exchange for a handful of pills. Must be pure hell for a straight person to be in love with a gay person. But what if there's no secret between them? What if what they are doing somehow satisfies a need for their lives? And they use each other openly?
I would have married David years and years ago if he needed a "beard." I would have done anything for him - I even went to his high school reunion, as his long-time girlfriend. He was so determined to make us a hit couple that before the reunion weekend we went shopping for matching outfits. That was pretty gay, but we did look good. I remember dancing together and whispe ring "Are we a success?" He said, "Honey, we're a hit! Thank you so much!" And as we smiled and hugged each other close, all eyes were upon us, presumably thinking what a romantic couple we were.
For years, his family and (small Texas) home town friends ask ed about me and when we'd be getting hitched. But his family surprised him with acceptance when he finally came out to them. Sadly, he may never have come out to them had he not developed HIV. But he wanted to give them ample time to prepare for his death. That was nearly 20 years ago, I am happy to say. 20 years ago, HIV meant death. Clearly, it no longer does, although there is a long way to go yet to find a cure.
I once met a lesbian who was happily married to a wealthy Swiss boy. He wa s gay and needed a wife to keep his inheritence. Surprisingly, babies weren't required, just marriage. So, they lied to his family throughout the year, and spent one month out of twelve at his family's estate. That was her prize for helping him: an all expen ses paid month's vacation every year in the Swiss Alps. Otherwise, they spoke on the phone but never saw each other. She really liked him. They liked each other's lovers, too.
Prophet reminded me of Chris Janowski. Chris is no longer with us, but I s uspect he would have been quite handsome in his prime.
I am grateful for materials like this play, Angels in America, for reminding us why art exists in the first place -- to marry our sensitivities with our society, to merge our culture with our commerce, to somehow bring the ethereal to the earthly, and hopefully, with good fortune, make us think about our lives and the world we live in.
Reagan's America left so many behind in its quest for global dominance and elevation of the wealthy and the elite. Clinton's America opened our social awareness but brazenly lost its touch with Everyman, splitting our public directly in half between those who view presidential sex as a private matter, and those who see only the lies he told to protect its discovery. Now Dubya seems perched for a dismantling of human rights, reproductive rights, civil rights ... and yet we find ourselves sleeping through it all because most of us in Dubya's America are not actively involved in the matters that make our psyche's actually work. We'd rather hear about his daughters' drinking habits and anxiously await the scandalous video tape of their sorority sister antics.
All these years after it was written, Angels in America asks of us
Where are we now?
and
Where are we going?
and
Will our humanity be in tact when we get there?
