Angels in American: Perestroika

I saw Angels in America: Perestroika this weekend and I'm sort of torn in my reaction.

On paper I find the play totally fascinating. I thought the actors were incredibly talented, especially those playing Harper, Belize, and Roy Cohn. The play was staged in a way that was true to the playwright's intent and fairly dynamically interesting. And yet...

...I didn't love seeing it.

I was really confused about it at first. I left the theatre not understanding why I was disengaged and a little bored and feeling a little preached at, but I think I've come to a conclusion. There's so much about that text to find. There's so much text period. The show was something like 3 and a half hours long but it still felt like things were moving a little too fast for me. There were scenes that were really, really valuable to see life: a lot of stuff with Roy Cohn, the Kaddish scene, the Angel orgasm, the angel erupting onto the stage.

But a lot of stuff just became exhausting to watch. The scene with all the angels in heaven and the radio just felt like so much LESS than I was expecting and I feel like a vista one of those scenes you just want to SEE in it's full, incredible glory in a way that is not only impossible, but is also not prescribed in the text. Kushner does not want that sort of realism, but I really, really do.

I think it's hard to connect with the urgency of the end of a world without seeing a world with which to connect to begin with.