Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes
Part One: Millennium Approaches
Part Two: Perestroika
by Tony Kushner
Directed by Marianne Elliott
Lyttelton Theatre, London
4 May—19 August 2017
FROM THE MOMENT Nathan Lane stepped onto the stage as the malign yet also tragic Roy Cohn, owning not only the part, but the huge Lyttelton stage and indeed the entire auditorium, the audience knew that it was witnessing something very special: dazzling theatricality, inspired casting, wit, prescience, wisdom, and a sense of the historic. When the National Theatre first staged Angels in America a quarter of a century ago, it announced the arrival of a major new force in American theater, certainly. But it equally marked a shift in how cultural responses to AIDS generally would come to position themselves, argue politically and engage, seduce yet also confront and make demands of their audiences or readers.
