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Angels in America
Dec. 8th, 2003 02:18 pmI really want to see Angels in America, which Duncan taped last night. I've been reading some incredible reviews for it and the imagery alone is enough to send me into director-frenzy. That enormous angel, drifting into a room; the inexorable approach of modernity--what an incredible metaphor for the '80s, and how AIDS forced America to acknowledge the gay subculture. The whole idea of the approach of modernity ("What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born again?")--I was telling Chris on Saturday I remember Nancy Reagan talking about the '60s; she said something about "this terrible time in our country's history." Terrible? The '60s? It was tumultuous, certainly, and when certain elements played out the worst-case scenario the results were terrible (the Manson murders were the dark side of the counter-culture, Kent State was the worst imaginable price for political involvement--in fact several of the victims weren't even protesting). But to characterize the '60s as terrible overall? Without the '60s we might still have segregated lunch counters. And the black vote for all intents and purposes wouldn't exist. Ole Miss would still be white-only. There would be no birth control pill. And no Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin! The '60s jump-started the modern era, as far as American values were concerned.
Here's a good quotation from a poster on Television Without Pity about Angels in America:
Though next week's installment ("Perestroika") is far heavier on the fantasy elements, it actually ties up a lot of the thematic threads (and also hits the hopeful, redemptive note many seem to have wanted). "Millennium Approaches" is *supposed* to leave you with something of a confused/suspended/paralyzed feeling. Millennial tropes are frequently associated with apocalyptic connotations. Apocalypse = end of the world, i.e. radical, disorienting, paralyzing change. In the '80s, AIDS on the one hand and the increasing prominence of the gay community on the other each represented a kind of apocalypse for two very different American subcultures. They thus present very apt metaphors by which to explore the ways we as humans, and more specifically as Americans, resist and fear change. Secondary metaphors--immigration, travel, the Reagan revolution, etc.--echo this theme.
At the same time, we humans (and more specifically we Americans) also *court* change in the form of (expected) progress. This thematic flipside is explored more in "Perestroika," whose title refers to the Gorbachev-led program of reform that ended communist rule in the Soviet Union ("perestroika" translates as "restructuring"). This is dramatized by (minor spoiler) the angels telling Prior that his job as Prophet is to stop humans from pursuing change. His response to this directive is a turning point in the play.
There are some other important themes--the ways in which identity and community both enable and limit (notice that every single character is ethnically and/or religiously marked--even the white Prior is so WASPy that he can trace his lineage back beyond the Pilgrims); ambivalence vs. belief (dramatized most forcefully by Louis and Joe); and the meaning of fidelity--to oneself and to others. But I think constancy and change are the most fundamental driving themes here. If you keep those in mind as you watch next week it may seem to cohere a bit more, though it will never "make sense" in a conventional linear way. Which is precisely what makes it so special and beautiful.
Must--see--it.
Here's a good quotation from a poster on Television Without Pity about Angels in America:
Though next week's installment ("Perestroika") is far heavier on the fantasy elements, it actually ties up a lot of the thematic threads (and also hits the hopeful, redemptive note many seem to have wanted). "Millennium Approaches" is *supposed* to leave you with something of a confused/suspended/paralyzed feeling. Millennial tropes are frequently associated with apocalyptic connotations. Apocalypse = end of the world, i.e. radical, disorienting, paralyzing change. In the '80s, AIDS on the one hand and the increasing prominence of the gay community on the other each represented a kind of apocalypse for two very different American subcultures. They thus present very apt metaphors by which to explore the ways we as humans, and more specifically as Americans, resist and fear change. Secondary metaphors--immigration, travel, the Reagan revolution, etc.--echo this theme.
At the same time, we humans (and more specifically we Americans) also *court* change in the form of (expected) progress. This thematic flipside is explored more in "Perestroika," whose title refers to the Gorbachev-led program of reform that ended communist rule in the Soviet Union ("perestroika" translates as "restructuring"). This is dramatized by (minor spoiler) the angels telling Prior that his job as Prophet is to stop humans from pursuing change. His response to this directive is a turning point in the play.
There are some other important themes--the ways in which identity and community both enable and limit (notice that every single character is ethnically and/or religiously marked--even the white Prior is so WASPy that he can trace his lineage back beyond the Pilgrims); ambivalence vs. belief (dramatized most forcefully by Louis and Joe); and the meaning of fidelity--to oneself and to others. But I think constancy and change are the most fundamental driving themes here. If you keep those in mind as you watch next week it may seem to cohere a bit more, though it will never "make sense" in a conventional linear way. Which is precisely what makes it so special and beautiful.
Must--see--it.
