“Angels in America” headed from London to NYC

by Rob Howard
Associate Editor

When Tony Kushner’s Angels in America came to the Broadway stage in 1993, it was widely acclaimed for its depiction of life during the height of the AIDS epidemic. By then, none of us was untouched by AIDS – close friends were dropping by the scores, there was no treatment. All you could do was watch while they wasted away until the inevitable call in the middle of the night that they had passed.

I didn’t get to see Angels until the 2003 HBO mini-series. That production revisited for me the pain of the years gone by. The production was moving, gripping and disturbing all at once. The eight hour running time flew by as the memories came flashing back.

Now, London’s critically acclaimed National Theatre production is coming to New York City for a reprise. Andrew Garfield as Prior Walter, the main character, and Nathan Lane as powerful and closeted Roy Cohn, have starred in the London production and are coming to New York with most of the cast.

The production, directed by Marianne Elliott, comes to Broadway’s Neil Simon Theatre in February for an 18 week run.

“What really hits one,” writes The Guardian reviewer of the National Theatre staging, “is the expansiveness of Kushner’s imagination and the rich opportunities he creates for actors.”

Calling the first play, Millennium Approaches, “tighter, tauter" than the second play, the review says, “Lane, seen previously on the London stage as Max Bialystock in The Producers, is magnetic as Cohn, creating a figure who is part predator, part patriarch but, above all, a victim of his own sad delusions about the significance of power.

“Meanwhile, Garfield as Prior excellently combines a head-tossing, period-style camp with the desperate anguish of a man craving love in his hour of need.”

The second play, Perestroika, “seems wilder, stranger, more surreal.” It introduces angels into the action.

“The best scenes in Perestroika,” writes The Guardian’s reviewer, “are those that follow the fortunes of the characters we have come to know. Lane’s Cohn remains the embodiment of bullying, power-hungry manipulativeness, but we almost come to pity him as he rages against encroaching death. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Belize, the one-time drag queen who becomes Cohn’s night nurse, touchingly suggests a certain compassion for a man whose politics he loathes.

“The character who develops most in the second play is Garfield’s Prior Walter. Having narrowly escaped death, he haunts the action with his long, pale face and black cloak and towards the end comes to embody the urge to live and the painful progress that seems the best hope for the human race.”

In addition to Garfield and Lane, most of the London cast will come to New York, including Denise Gough, James McArdle and Stewart-Jarrett.

The London production played to sell-out and often “Standing room only” crowds during its run. Tickets for the New York run go on sale October 27. Anyone planning a visit to New York City in late February, or March through June, should plan to see Angels in America; it’s an important, moving play and its message will be with you for the rest of your life.

You can read The Guardian’s full review here.

Copyright 2017 The Gayly – September 7, 2017 @ 2:45 p.m.