Three curtain calls and the entire Lyttleton Theatre audience on their feet, highlights that the two ticket only policy for Angels In America is entirely justified. Let’s hope that Part Two, Perestroika, which I’ve booked to see in August is as good.
Tony Kushner’s epic play (event even) was first staged at The National in 1993. Set in New York during the Reagan years, 1985 to be exact, Angels in America is funny, sad and thought provoking, all wrapped up as a theatrical extravaganza. It is termed “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” and was written when Aids was the huge elephant in the room. It features Prior Walter who has succumbed to this scourge of gay men. Unfortunately his male partner, Louis Ironson, can’t cope and does a runner. Meanwhile a young Mormon, Joseph Pitt, can’t face the fact that he prefers men and, as a result, his unhappy wife, Harper, pops pills - lots of them. And then there’s Roy M Cohn, not a figment of the playwright’s imagination, but Donald Trump’s legal adviser back in the day. A very important “legal eagle” Cohn denies his homosexuality and the fact that he has Aids.
That is the bare bones of the play, which, in theory, is easy enough to condense into a few lines, but in practice is much more complex. Thankfully, under Marianne Elliott’s expert guidance, any long rambling speeches are crystal clear and she ensures there is always something to assault the senses; incredibly important seeing as how Part One runs for 3 ½ hours. The lonely and often illusory city life, is embodied within Ian MacNeil’s staging of the play. Little scenarios are performed within isolated boxes, whilst the discontinuous scenes mark the fractured society of Reagan’s second term of office.
Although the play features more than thirty characters, various members of the cast take on several parts and six further actors are employed as Angel Shadows. Because, of course, the Angel of the title is actually a physical part of the action, appearing as she does to Prior towards the end of Millennium Approaches. “Very Steven Spielberg”, comments Prior on her spectacular entrance and how right he is, even though this spiritual being, played by the excellent Amanda Lawrence, is rather more comical in appearance than celestial.
The cast is faultless. Andrew Garfield more than lives up to expectations as the flamboyant, if intense Prior Walter. The camp affectations of fluttering hands and elongated neck, give way to howling despair on realising the lesions on his skin are portents of what will eventually befall him. He is funny, pathetic and, ultimately, pitiable. His erstwhile, garrulous boyfriend, is brilliantly bought to life by James McArdle, whose long, rambling, political and guilt ridden speeches, rather than amusing, would be painful in less capable hands. Denise Gough, so good at portraying a troubled soul in People, Places and Things, is equally fine here as is Russell Tovey her soul searching husband. Another great performance is given by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, the ex drag queen, turned nurse who takes care of Prior. His nurse is the embodiment of gentleness and practicality that one would expect, whilst he perfects the art of providing just the right amount of undercutting cynicism as Belize.
Which brings me to the Tony Award winning Nathan Lane, as Roy M Cohn. He changes from soft-spoken seemingly tame pussycat to ferocious lion in a heartbeat and is extremely funny, even when sick to the core with Aids (or liver cancer as he would have it). He is the epitome of a great American stage actor.
Add to all this the excellent Susan Brown, who amongst others plays Hannah, Joe’s conservative Mormon mother and Amanda Lawrence’s various guises and the whole is an epic delight. Huge, but strangely intimate and immensely entertaining.
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