Pictured: Julianne Arnall & Tomas Theriot
in City Lights' autumn 2006 production of
Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches
Photo by Jeanine Brown Photography
Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches Synopsis
It is October, 1985, in New York. The AIDS epidemic is at its mid-80s height. Prior Walter learns that he has contracted the disease, and his live-in lover Louis Ironson cannot deal with the news. Upon finding that he, too, is stricken with AIDS, neo-conservative power broker and closet homosexual Roy Cohn masks his disease with the more acceptable label “liver cancer.” At the same time, Roy's pet project Joe Pitt and his agoraphobic wife Harper can no longer ignore the rift widening between them. Though both are Mormon, Joe grapples with unnamed sexual feelings he cannot comprehend, and Harper dulls her unhappiness with Valium-induced hallucinations involving a mystical travel agent named Mr. Lies.
As Prior's disease worsens, he begins hearing voices and having vivid fever dreams. During one such dream he encounters a hallucinating Harper and they recognize that, though worlds apart, they have much in common – a “threshold of revelation.” Joe and Louis meet by chance, and the spark of attraction is ignited between them. Meanwhile, Roy offers Joe some speedy – and morally questionable – career advancement as he solicits Joe's protection from the disbarment proceedings that have been brought against him. The problems between Prior and Louis and Joe and Harper intensify until Louis, unable to cope with his lover's disease, runs out on Prior, and Harper, at last recognizing her husband's homosexuality, leaves Joe. Joe's mother Hannah immediately sells her Salt Lake home and moves to New York.
Abandoned by his lover, Prior's condition deteriorates and he begins to see things and the voices in his head get worse. He takes comfort in the companionship of his friend Belize, a former drag queen and now nurse at New York Hospital. Aided by Mr. Lies, Harper retreats into another Valium fantasy that takes her to a fantastical Antarctic plain. Joe angers Roy by turning down the position Roy has offered, and after Joe flees Roy is visited by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg who, in the 1950s, was executed for treason thanks, in part, to the illegal backroom involvement of a young Roy Cohn. Roy collapses and is rushed to New York Hospital, while Joe seeks out Louis in Central Park. Overcome by their mutual attraction, Joe and Louis retire to Louis' new apartment.
January, 1986: Part One comes to its climactic close as the Angel of America crashes through Prior's bedroom ceiling . . .
Buy tickets now for the conclusion of Tony Kushner's epic saga,
Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika!
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