Review: Angels in America

Angels in America is ‘a melting pot where nothing melts’.

Angels in America, to put it in the words of one of the characters in the play, is ‘a melting pot where nothing melts’. In fact, characters’ passions, beliefs, and relationships explode, implode and everything else in between.

At over two and half hours in length, this is some production, but if you’ve sat through The Hobbit and Les Mis, then this play will be no problem at all.

Produced by Hannah Hurley, written by American playwright Tony Kushner in 1993, Angels in America juxtaposes a troubled gay couple with an equally troubled married couple; these are presented against a disturbing backdrop of Reagan-era America, which is never far from sight thanks to the newspaper covered settings.

This is a satire which works by picking out people from all walks of life: a high profile lawyer, a pill popping self-deluded Mormon housewife, her Mormon mother in law, an ex (or according to his protestations, an ex ex) drag queen and the ghost of a communist spy.

This is definitely a dark play with some decidedly shady characters, but humour does make frequent appearances, and so do angelic apparitions. The contrast between seriously corrupt high-level politics and insights into the psyche of a Mormon housewife makes for a political satire that does not exclude the personal.

An experienced cast put in convincing performances. Aids-struck Prior, played by Ed Barr Sim, at once a pitiful and a humorous character, beats away angels with crucifixes and garlic but who also lies touchingly despondent in his hospital bed.

Arty Froushan puts in a brilliantly angsty performance as Prior’s Jewish partner, Louis, succeeding in being more emotionally cut up than his dying boyfriend. Credit must also go to Selali Fiamanya as drag queen Belize; he brought laughs by nonchalantly picking up a cup of coffee – and when he switches on the sarcasm the fun really starts.

© Noemi Dreskler & Toby Mather

The play has a fantasy element with a difference; the characters are actually involved in each other’s hallucinations on different levels of the stage. This works – just. The flashing lights, disembodied voices and an assortment of ghosts stretch the theatre’s technical capacities and the audience’s suspension of disbelief.

More than these spectral appearances though, it’s the exits which are really mysterious; characters seem to just magically drop off the back of the stage… I still haven’t work out how they manage it.

But the real interest comes from the characters’ inner demons: the struggle to reconcile Mormonism and homosexuality, taking pills or facing life, or the horror of knowing you let someone down in a time of need.

This play explores America and the troubled American psyche from some unlikely angles, and it gives us some unlikely angels too. Angels in America is a must see for anyone with an interest in politics across the pond, anyone who can agree with the definition of law as a ‘sweating organ’, or anyone who likes their jokes dark and their humour sadistic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtXaVBrxHs

Angels in America is showing at the Oxford Playhouse until Saturday.

www.angelsinoxford.com