Kramer Revives Angels in America???
Date: 17 July 2006
Director
Daniel Kramer, who will revive Martin Sherman’s
Bent in the West End with
Alan Cumming this autumn (See
News, 14 Jul 2006), plans to turn his attention to another seminal gay drama next year –
Angels in America. US playwright
Tony Kushner’s seven-hour epic, subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes”, is set in New York City in the mid-1980s, when God has abandoned heaven, the Reagans are in the White House and AIDS is decimating the gay community. In centres on two couples: AIDS sufferer Prior has been left by his lover Louis, who is unable to cope with the disease. Meanwhile, the marriage of Mormons Joe and Harper is threatened by Joe’s lifelong struggle to deny his homosexuality. Roy Cohn, a ruthlessly right-wing lawyer and Joe’s mentor, is also a closet homosexual and AIDS victim. Written for eight actors assuming multiple roles,
Angels in America was commissioned and developed by San Francisco’s Eureka Theater. Part one,
Millennium Approaches, had its UK premiere at the National Theatre in 1992, and was joined in rep by part two,
Perestroika, the following year, both directed by
Declan Donnellan with casts including
Henry Goodman,
Stephen Dillane,
Daniel Craig and
Joseph Mydell. The piece opened on Broadway in 1993, winning the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2003, Mike Nichols’ made the drama into an HBO TV mini-series which starred Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Mary-Louise Parker and Patrick Wilson. Kramer’s new production will be for Oxford Stage Company and is likely to open next spring in Glasgow prior to a tour and London transfer to the Lyric Hammersmith. Author
Tony Kushner is around later this year for the UK premiere, again at the National, of the musical
Caroline, or Change, for which he’s written the book (See
News, 5 May 2006) – which, handily, means he’ll also be available to lend his support during preparations for the
Angels revival.
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