DECEMBER 4, 1998 GAY PEOPLe's ChronICLE 15
EVENINGS OUT
Angels, parts one and two: Now the great work begins
by Eric Resnick
Cleveland-If art imitates life, then Dobama Theatre's presentation of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer and Tony-winning epic drama Angels in America in repertory is rich, intense, funny, and charming. If life inspires art, Kushner has captured the essence of struggle, conflict, resolve,
and celebration.
It has been said that Angels in America is the most important theatrical work of our time. Dobama, which has always embraced great works with gay themes, took considerable risk presenting Part One: Millenium Approaches last spring and Part Two: Perestroika, which be-
gan November 27.
Their risks and subse quent commitment have produced an incredible experience for all to enjoy.
Angels in America rep. resents the largest financial commitment Dobama Theatre has ever made to a performance-$50,000. The two parts will run in repertory each Sunday through December 20. Perestroika runs each Saturday evening and the shows alternate Wednesdays -Fridays.
"The world spins forward" is the Angel's reply, and that like the chips of plaster fallen around Prior, the complex lives of each character and the evolution of AIDS and the gay civil rights movement, once shattered, each can be put back together, but not exactly the way it was.
At that point, the audience drops in on RIQUE WINSTON
Millenium Approaches Louis Ironson, right, plants a big kiss on Joe Pitt, a played to nearly sold out closeted lawyer based on the real-life right-hand man audiences last spring. of Roy Cohn. Most of the brilliant cast
has returned for Perestroika. Each part stands alone, but audiences should see both parts. Dobama includes a synopsis of Millenium Approaches at Perestroika performances for people who are not familiar with the plot line.
Perestroika means thaw in Russian, and is the term used to describe the neo-Russian political movement of the 1980s, preceding the fall of the Soviet Union. Kushner begins Perestroika in January, 1986, with a monologue from the Kremlin by Aleksii Antediluvianovich Prelapsarianov (Jeanne Task), the oldest living Bolshevik, who raises the great question: Are we doomed?
From there, Perestroika picks up where Millenium Approaches ends. Prior Walter, played by Scott Plate, is dying from AIDS and confronting the Angel, played by Laura Perotta, who has just crashed through his ceiling telling him he is a prophet.
Kushner uses Biblical analogy throughout, and like all true prophets, Prior wrestles with his Angel, telling her, "I'm not a prophet. I'm a sick, lonely man and I don't know what you want from me."
the lives of the other characters. Kushner weaves his characters and plots ironically around deep spirituality, using powerful metaphor and deliberate symbolism at every moment. Audiences are not, however, strained by this intensity. Through the brilliance of the writing and the talent of director Joel Hammer, the ensemble of eight executes their performance so precisely that it flows seamlessly and effortlessly over the audience, regardless of how frank or complex the situation is.
Each character grows through ironic encounters with other characters in places one would not expect to find them, leaving pearls of wisdom and deep spiritual enlight-
enment.
Everyone who sees Angels in America in its entirety will see the play through their own experiences as well as through the characters, which is one reason why it is so powerful. We see how change through struggle takes people through stages not unlike Elizabeth KublerRoss' stages of death and dying, which, if successful, lead to strength and peace. As the world spins forward and their lives
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go on, each character is changed as values are sorted out. Yet there is enough realism at the core that each character still resembles the person we were introduced to in Millenium Approaches.
Angels in America reminds us what the struggle is all about and shows us that great things can be achieved if we keep confronting new challenges.
The cast is a perfect ensemble made up of local talent. Each actor is fabulous and complete by themselves, but none overshadow the good of the whole.
Being a part of Angels in America has been a catalyst of personal growth for the actors as well.
Kenn McLaughlin, who plays Joe Pitt, personally struggled with doing Perestroika. Joe works for Roy, who is based on the real-life Roy Cohn, a despicable individual who aided Sen. Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist and anti-gay witchhunts in the 1950s, and who died of AIDS in 1986 while still denying that he was gay.
While working for Roy, Joe writes antigay opinions for an incompetent judge. He also has an affair with Louis Ironson, one of the clerks in the building.
McLaughlin, who is deeply spiritual, found the play difficult because one of its themes raises the question of God abandoning the world.
"I couldn't be an agent for anything like that," said McLaughlin, "until I realized that if you begin to be afraid of the hard questions being asked, you are part of the problem."
McLaughlin loves his character, but is horrified by his values. McLaughlin points out, "He is the only one who is abandoned and left behind. How I am not like Joe fills me up more than how I am like Joe:"
Scott Plate, who plays Prior Walter, found some of his own humanity in his character, which he refers to as his "innerdrag queen."
"Prior goes blind," Plate says, "which lets him see that he does not need to see outside himself to find the beauty that is. The acorn has always held the oak."
Plate describes Angels in America as "bewildering" and "disorienting,” adding, "It picks you up by the shoulders and shakes you. Then it puts you back down on earth and you're supposed to pick up the pieces."
Jerry Zafer says of his character Roy Cohn, "It's a wonderful role for any actor, especially in Millenium Approaches, although [in real life] Roy was a reprehensible man." Zafer loves what he calls the "aesthetic gayness" of Kushner's writing.
Each of the three gay actors finds something about Angels in America that mirrors his own experience as a gay American who came of age during the 1980s, as will the audience.
"I came out in 1984," says Plate, “At that time, you never heard the words gay and AIDS except together. It was haunting to think that what you wanted was a dangerous thing."
Perestroika never directly answers the question, "Are we doomed?" Instead it suggests that we are not, if we take better care of each other and ourselves. Perestroika ends with the same phrase as Millenium Approaches does: "Now the great work begins."
Truly it has at Dobama Theatre, who is to be commended for taking the risks and standing by this show.
Dobama Theatre is located at 1846 Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights. For information and reservations, call the box office at 216-932-6838.
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