Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

At the beginning of the first play, Louis is Prior’s partner, and they have been living together for over four years. He is a white, Jewish, gay man who is terrified of conflict, emotional rawness, and pain in all forms. Louis is closeted with his family, and he leaves Prior while he is unconscious in the hospital. However, Louis is plagued with guilt, which he tries to atone for by making himself suffer in unproductive ways. Louis argues with Belize about democracy in ways that show that he doesn’t want to acknowledge deep flaws in the system, such as racism, because he is averse to change. Louis has a brief affair with Joe, even though he knows that Joe is politically conservative. Their relationship starts to fall apart when Louis learns that Joe is a Mormon, but Louis changes as a character when he finds out that Joe is friends with Roy Cohn. He confronts Joe and keeps challenging him, even after Joe starts to hit him. Although Louis decides that he is finally ready to be with Prior, Prior has grown as well and no longer needs him. Louis is double cast as the Angel of Australia and as his grandmother, Sarah Ironson, whom Prior encounters in Heaven—because, as the rabbi said, Louis is made from the clay she brought from her country. When Louis sings the Kaddish over Roy, Ethel joins in to help him, demonstrating that Judaism is also part of his makeup.

Joe is a white, Mormon, closeted gay man who moved his wife, Harper, who experiences mental health and addiction issues, from Salt Lake City to New York to pursue his career as a lawyer. Joe has always followed the rules, denying his sexuality, excelling at law school, and working hard as a law clerk to uphold the illusion that he is an ideal Mormon husband. But this starts to unravel through his unhappiness, as he disappears on long walks (admitting later that he goes to Central Park to watch gay men have sex), and Harper begins to understand that he is gay. Roy Cohn threatens what Joe views as his impeccable professional integrity by choosing him as a protégé and offering a job in Washington that would force him to compromise his ethics. Joe turns a blind eye to Roy’s power-hungry unscrupulousness and convinces himself that he is a good person. Joe also has a short-lived affair with Louis but becomes violent when Louis reveals that Joe may be ethical in terms of technicalities, but he has used the law to deny human dignity to oppressed people. Joe also plays Prior 1, who is oblivious that Prior is gay; the Inuit, Harper’s disappointing companion in the imaginary Arctic; the Angel Europa; and the Mormon Father in the diorama, the archetype for the Mormon patriarch as Harper imagines him.

Harper, Joe’s wife, is a straight, white, Mormon woman who is mentally ill and has become addicted to valium because she feels trapped in her marriage. Harper loves Joe, but she is also afraid to leave the apartment and interact with other people in the real world. As an alternative, Harper hallucinates, creating an imaginary world that is sometimes terrifying and sometimes safer than her life. Like Prior, Harper has a preternatural insight, and she and Prior meet in a hallucination/dream space where they can see things about each other that no one else can. Harper is often frank and honest in ways that embarrass Joe. She runs away twice by following her hallucinations but longs to travel somewhere real. Harper meets Prior again in Heaven when he goes to return the book and she overdoses, but she decides to go back, convincing Prior to return to life as well. At the end of the plays, Harper finally gets her wish to travel and boards a plane to San Francisco. Harper also plays the Angel Africanii as well as Martin Heller, a higher-up in Reagan’s Justice Department who is beholden to Roy Cohn. As Heller, Harper serves as a reminder of Harper during Joe’s lunch with Roy about the job in Washington.

Roy is a fictionalization of the historical Roy Cohn (1927-1986), a powerful, ruthless lawyer who was infamous for, among other things, prosecuting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage in 1953, leading to their execution, and working as a lawyer for Senator Joe McCarthy in the anti-Communist hearings of the 1950s. Like the Roy in the play, Cohn admitted later that he and the judge had spoken about the Rosenberg trial privately. Cohn was disbarred about five weeks before dying of AIDS, although he claimed that he had liver disease. While Roy’s interactions in the play are imaginary, his story and background are largely historically true. Kushner’s Roy is deliberately malicious, anti-gay, and racist. He represents the evil of humanity while remaining thoroughly human. As someone who died of AIDS, Roy is presented as a victim. But as a person, Roy is offered no redemption. He becomes a test for the humanity of others. Despite his cruelty to Belize, Belize insists that Roy receive a prayer as a thank you for the pills. Although Roy taunts Ethel and has no remorse for her death, Ethel takes pity on him and sings for him. Then, she helps Louis to sing the Kaddish over his body. Alternately, Joe gives in to temptation and loses some of his humanity. Roy also demonstrates that AIDS doesn’t care about power or money. Roy is double cast as the Angel Antarctica, who wants to see the world burn, and Prior 2, who is ironically much kinder and more empathetic than Joe’s Prior 1.

Belize’s real name is Norman Arriaga. He is a Black gay man and a nurse, and the name Belize is a remnant from when he was a drag queen. He is compassionate and highly competent, and he works on the AIDS floor of New York Hospital. Belize is Prior’s ex-partner, and after Louis leaves him, Belize steps in to support him. He is also Roy’s nurse when Roy is admitted to the hospital. Belize has very little political power, but he doesn’t accept belittlement from those who have more. He trades barbs with Roy, unfazed by Roy’s diatribes and threats. Belize cannot stand Louis for most of the narrative, although he agrees to meet up with him when Louis asks, and he accuses Louis of racism while Louis accuses Belize of antisemitism. Belize denies this, but Roy manages to goad him into using a slur against Jewish people. However, Belize is deeply caring, even finding empathy for Roy, and doesn’t hesitate to steal AZT for Prior after Roy dies. Belize also plays Mr. Lies, Hannah’s hallucinated travel agent who helps her to escape her painful life, as well as the recorded voice of one of the Mormon son mannequins in the diorama and the Angel Oceania.

Hannah, Joe’s mother, is a straight, white Mormon woman who first appears as herself near the end of Act II in the first play. When Joe calls Hannah to tell her that he is gay, Hannah tells him he is being ridiculous. But she recognizes that her son is in crisis, so she immediately sells her house and jumps on a plane to New York. Hannah is blunt and sometimes harsh, asserting that she lacks pity. But she takes care of Harper and demonstrates that she doesn’t lack compassion when Prior collapses. Despite her initial reaction to Joe, Hannah balks at Prior’s assumption that she must have an anti-gay bias. Hannah takes care of Prior and is by his side when he faces the Angel. By the end of the plays, Hannah has become a New Yorker and adopted Prior, Belize, and Louis as family. She maintains her religious beliefs and hopes that Prior will one day be healed by the fountain of Bethesda. Hannah also plays the rabbi who leads Sarah Ironson’s funeral, Henry, Roy’s doctor, the world’s oldest Bolshevik, the Angel Asiatica, and Ethel Rosenberg. Her characters have authority and no-nonsense voices that, though unrelentingly candid, often give way to sincere empathy.