Drama Made Easy 2: Angels In America

By Drama World

“Angels In America” by Tony Kushner was first launched in 1993. It is subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” The play is divided into two parts with several acts.

This play is the winner of several prestigious literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

The play examines AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. It is a very complex and often metaphorical play. The symbolic examination of the above-mentioned dreaded disease is highly admirable.

Drama Made Easy 2: Angels In America
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Millennium Approaches
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Perestroika
Act One
Act Two
Act Three
Act Four
Act Five
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Dec 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310796395

Book preview

Drama Made Easy 2: Angels In America

Copyright

Drama Made Easy 2: Angels In America

Drama World

Copyright@2015 Drama World

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter One: Introduction

Angels In America by Tony Kushner was first launched in 1993. It is subtitled A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The play is divided into two parts with several acts.

This play is the winner of several prestigious literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

The play examines AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. It is a very complex and often metaphorical play.

The symbolic examination of the above-mentioned dreaded disease is highly admirable.

The play has certain supernatural characters, angels, and deceased persons, ghosts. Several actors in the play perform multiple roles.

The play primarily revolves around a gay couple in Manhattan. Along with the main storyline, there are several other storylines. Some of these stories keep intersecting on different occasions.

The two parts of the play are entitled Millennium Approaches and Perestroika. The play has already been adapted into a television series. It has also been made into an opera.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The play is set in New York City in 1985. Louis Ironson and WASP Prior Walter are a gay couple. As the play opens, Louis learns that Prior Walter has AIDS. Prior’s ailment continues to grow with the progression of the play.

Louis is in deep emotional stress and he finds it very difficult to cope with it, so he moves out.

Republican Joe Pitt is a law clerk in the office of the judge where Louis is a clerk too. The McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn is Joe’s mentor. He offers Joe a major job opportunity, but Joe does not accept the job immediately because he wants to check with his wife, who is a valium addict.

Harper, Joe’s wife, is acrophobic and not ready to move. Roy is also very much closeted, and he also finds out that he has AIDS.

The entire time period that the play covers is seven hours. As the play progresses, Prior is visited by ghosts and angels. They proclaim the Prior is a prophet. Joe finds it very difficult to reconcile his religion with his homosexuality.

Louis feels very sorry and guilty because of leaving Prior. Louis begins a relationship with Joe. When Harper learns that Joe is gay, her mental health begins to decline.

Hannah is Joe’s mother. She moves to New York to try to look after Harper. She meets Prior after a failed attempt by Prior to confront Hannah’s son. Harper begins to drift away from Joe. She happens; to have depended upon him. She eventually finds the strength that she was really unaware of.

Roy is in the hospital. The ghost of Ethel Rosenberg and his nurse, Belize, are his companions in the hospital. Belize used to be a drag queen and Prior’s best friend. Louis keeps asking him about Prior’s health and he has to update him.

The subplot of the play involves Cohn. He happens to be a self-loathing, power-hungry hypocrite.

He has several political connections and he is proud of them. He has influence in the political circle. He has been involved in corruption for decades, and has been able