Angels in America

“When MILLENNIUM APPROACHES, Part One of ANGELS IN AMERICA, opened on Broadway in 1993, Tony Kushner was hailed as the savior of serious American theater” (Gainor, Garner, and Puchner1459). When Kushner wrote Part One of this Gay Fantasia he brought together many themes and issues of the 1980s. Such themes and issues include AIDS, homosexuality, religion, and politics. As other plays a balance must be kept and so Kushner wrote this work with exact precision. With so many topics to discuss Kushner’s writing had to demonstrate a wide range of characters and their differentiating opinions to keep the balance. The sense of balance of this play is demonstrated by the similarities, oppositions, and connections of characters through the writing style.

Similarities between characters can strengthen their relationship and connect their reactions of events, even if the characters do not come together. For instance, Harper and Louis are similar in that they abandon their lovers (Borreca 2). Louis abandons Prior when the toll of Prior’s declining health and impending death becomes too great. Joe knows something too; as he leaves Harper alone going on long walks emotionally deserting her until she ultimately leaves Joe, coughing up blood. After they abandon their partners, Louis and Joe cling to one another therefore connecting them to each other (2). The ones left alone, Prior and Harper, are then connected in their loneliness and their hallucinations. They even share in each other’s hallucination/dream. This is where they confront each other about the other’s partner with information neither of them could have known in reality (Meisner 3). Consequently Harper, Prior, and Roy are all connected in their supernatural hallucinat...

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... 2009. 1459-463. Print.

Kushner, Tony. “Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches.” The Norton Anthology of Drama Volume Two The Nineteenth Century to the Present. 1st. 2. Gainor, J. Ellen, Stanton B. Garner JR., and Martin Puchner. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2009. 1465-525. Print.

All relative material comes from this primary source

Posnock, Ross. “Roy Cohn in America.” Raritan 13.3 (Winter 1994): 64-77. Rpt. in Drama Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

Meisner, Natalie. “Messing with the Idyllic: The Performance of Femininity in Kushner’s Angels in America.” Yale Journal of Criticism 16.1 (Spring 2003): 177-189. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 203. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.