Angels in America by Tony Kushner

Descendents of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names, you do not live in America, no such place exists. Your clay is the clay of Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes. Because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home. 

My only previous experience with Angels in America was watching some of the HBO miniseries while home on Christmas break from college. I can admit now that most of the nuance was completely lost on me, and that I didn't make it far. As an older, more careful reader (and not casual TV watcher), I still feel like some of the nuance was lost on me, but I was blown away by Kushner's poetic ease and the layers upon layers upon layers in each and every scene.

Angels in America is, on the surface, a play about the AIDS crisis. It centers around a gay couple in the late 80's, one of whom has AIDS, and it spirals out to touch on everything from the national politics of AIDS to faith, religion, race, and what it means to belong. There is a lot going on here, both thematically and physically--scenes often involve two or more geographically and even temporally separate conversations happening simultaneously and weaving in and out of one another. The many narratives of the play, some fictional, some pseudo-biblical, and some historical, are all tumbling out onto each other and lending new dimensions to one another as they go. I feel like I could read it three more times and still pick up on more subtlety.

The primary reason why I feel the need to re-read (or at least watch) this at least once more is that I really struggled with the various layers of religion/spirituality/subconscious that are woven throughout. Only one character, Harper, is portrayed as mentally ill; her (many) visions and dreams were relatively easy for me to process and fit into the context of the play, but there is an entire "angels" plot arc that seems to push in and out of reality and draws in even the most pragmatic of the characters. It's clearly a narrative arc that is central to the theme of the play, and it's interesting, but it really threw me for a loop. I like knowing what's real and what isn't, and when literature or film messes with that line, I have trouble engaging (magical realism and I are not always the best of friends). That particular issue was not a good one to have while reading this play where everything descends into a grey area of spirituality/drug and illness-enduced madness that leaves a lot up to the reader/viewer to interpret.

Despite the fact that this is a play written nearly thirty years ago about an epidemic which is largely under control (at least in the white gay community), it still feels relevant (explaining why audiences are still willing to sit through seven and a half hours of theater to watch it). The characters, even when they were hallucinating, were relatably flawed and Kushner is able to portray shades of personality impressively quickly and concisely (this is something I'm always impressed by with plays. I should read them more).