Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches

by Tony Kushner

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 18 May 2017

Marianne Elliott directs this revival of Tony Kushner's sprawling two part epic subtitled 'A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'. In 1992 I saw the first production (by Declan Donnellan) of this first part in 1992 in the National's smallest auditorium, then named the Cottesloe (now the Dorfman); it was fascinating to see it reimagined for the larger and more conventional proscenium stage of the Lyttleton. The grandeur and expansiveness of the conception was easier to appreciate, but perhaps some of the raw intensity was dissipated.

The play is wide-ranging and ambitious - a fantasia indeed as it follows several major characters facing (or evading) the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and their own personal struggles with loyalty, love and honesty. The cast is uniformly excellent, fully committed to the extravagances of the text and thus able to hold the audience's attention during the long speeches while being equally compelling in the tense and often agonising personal encounters that drive the action. The design (sets by Ian MacNeil and lighting by Paule Constable) marvellously reflects the disparate spaces in which the scenes take place - offices, apartments, parks, streets and a hospital ward - all managed on three independent evolves across the width of the stage.

Andrew Garfield gives an astonishing performance as Prior Walter, the young gay man facing the onset of AIDS and the cruel failure of his lover Louis (an excellent James McArdle) to stay with him as his condition worsens. Not only is he wounded emotionally by Louis's departure, he is also terrified of the illness and fearful of his grasp on sanity as strange visions afflict him. Garfield's portrayal of this central character is utterly compelling, his physical mannerisms imbuing an initially camp hand-wringing with increasingly expressive desperation, and his vocal range encompassing mounting hysteria with absolute conviction. 

James McArdle renders Louis's selfishness and introspection in bravura passages of talk, almost completely unaware of the offence and pain he might be causing, and digging himself deeper into guilt and self-recrimination as he tries to account for himself and explain his world view. Such a person could be just obtuse but somehow one senses the pain and confusion.

The only historical character presented on stage is the odious Roy Cohn, played by Nathan Lane, a man obsessed by power and influence, shamelessly predatory and manipulative. It's a dazzling display of brazen self-confidence, mesmerising and horrific to watch as Cohn refuses to accept that he has AIDS or that he is homosexual, all the time wheeling and dealing to preserve his position as a formidable lawyer. The haplessly conflicted Joe Pitt (an anguished Russell Tovey) is fatefully within Cohn's orbit, trying to adhere to his ethical upbringing as a Mormon in this professional cesspool while at the same time realising that his marriage to Harper is doomed as an attempt to mask or overcome his own sexual orientation. The marriage is not only a sham for him, but it has also driven his wife (Denise Gough) to a distracted reliance on Valium.

These deeply personal conflicts and traumas are treated with a theatrical flair that allows characters who never meet in 'real' life - such as Harper and Prior - to encounter one another in dreams, while Roy Cohn in the extremity of his illness has a conversation with Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed over thirty years before as a result of his vindictive prosecution in a celebrated treason trial. Somehow Ethel calls the ambulance for Cohn - how could this possibly be happening? - and yet in the world of this play we accept the situation as a meaningful part of the fantasia. 

Unfortunately for me, the box office was so overwhelmed by demand for tickets that I have to wait until August to see Part Two. An Angel has crashed into Prior's life but I have weeks to wait to find out what happens next (I did not see the original production of the second part).