'Angels in America,' the right play for our fractious times

NEW YORK - The superb new Broadway production of "Angels in America" from London brought back my first encounter with the work at the Walter Kerr Theatre in 1993.

I had traveled from New Haven to see the two-part play on a Saturday, all day, by myself. I was a grad student at the Yale School of Drama and felt completely justified in splurging on orchestra tickets for the afternoon and evening performances.

I was considering writing about the much-talked-about play for a chapter of my dissertation, but that was really only a pretext. I needed "Angels in America" even though I wasn't sure I could handle the experience.

AIDS was still more or less a death sentence in 1993. My uncle had died from the disease in 1987. I had seen older