Tony Kushner Angels In America Essay Example For Students

Tony Kushner: Angels In America Essay Explore how any playwright of the time has successfully dramatised a social issue. Contemporary theatre has stepped further and further away from the sugar-coated happy society plays and musicals that once dominated Broadway and the West End. Now, harsher more realistic stories with issues facing todays society and politics are shocking that conventional-type of theatre. ?Shock is a part of art. Art thats polite is not much fun? (Kushner:Bernstein). One of these stories that have made this kind of impact on modern drama and theatre is Tony Kushners ?Angels in America.? Described as ?the best American play in forty years,? this two part play (?Millennium Approaches? and ?Perestroika?) gives to life a variety of different issues facing not just the American society it is set in but the modern world as well (Lucas). With the main story line dealing with gays, politics, and AIDS in the 1980s, with this ?A Gay Fantasia on National Themes Kushner has successfully explored these issues in further detail ultimately ?nudging Broadway into the 21st century? (Winship). The gay revolution took place in America in the 1980s which, consequently, is the setting for ?Angels in America?. The strong economy gave many of ?Reagans children? power and courage to be more open with their sexuality (Part One: Act II, scene vii). People were ?coming out, so to speak, more than in previous decades. With five out of eight of the main characters in the play being gay males, and half of those in high power positions (i.e. law), the setting and political information discussed support the truth that Kushner writes about the gay community. ?Good politics will produce good aesthetics, really good politics will produce really good aesthetics, and really good aesthetics, if somebodys really asking the hard questions and answering them honestly, theyll probably produce truth? (Kushner:Bernstein). There is truth at the most basic of levels when, Joe, chief clerk for a Federal Court of Appeals judge, admits that he is homosexual (Part One: Act II, scene viii). Also truth to the most extreme, a consequence leading to death for many homosexuals: HIV and the AIDS virus, involving Roy the successful lawyer/power broker (Part Two: Act IV, scene viiii). ?Angels in America? is not just a ?gay play, but a play about American politics as well. The appearance of politics, not to mention homosexuality and AIDS, are issues resisted by most critics and audiences. Despite the odds, the subjects have proved successful to Kushner. The political element in this play is one that is a key in the story line and something not seen in many plays before this time. ?Is it that Americans dont like politics, or is it that so much theatre that is political isnt well done (Kushner:Bernstein) It is mentioned in detail and is even non-fictional, as mentioned in Kushners disclaimer for ?Perestroika?. This type of detail given at an aesthetic approach essentially gives the audience a life-like story and the characters that life to portray. The change the Reagan era caused in politics and the country is expressed by these characters as a part of that society. For example, Joe, representing the optimistic opinion, discusses with Harper the positive change that the Reagan administration has given to the country:?For the good. Change for the good. America has rediscovereditself. Its sacred position among nations. And people arent ashamedof that like they used to beThe truth restored. Law restored. Thats what President Reagans done.We become better. Moregood? (Part One: Act One, scene v). As Belize, representing the more pessimistic opinion, discusses to Louis of his hate of America under Reagan:?Well I hate America, Louis. I hate this country. Its just big ideas,and stories, and people dying, and people like youI live in America,Louis, thats hard enough. I dont have to love it? (Part Two: Act IV, scene iii). The varying opinions, openly discussed by these characters, represent the same doubts and hopes of that American society. ?I think that a characters politics have to live in the same sort of relationship to the characters psyche that peoples politics live in relationship to their own psyches? (Kushner:Bernstein). Just the detailed political statements that the characters give in relation to society are enough to leave the audience thinking and questioning that power-hungry society of the 1980s. Yet, Kushner gives this a further twist by making the audience really test their political views. As they may be able to associate with these conservative political views, will they still be able to agree with that same character and their view on alternative sexuality? This is another part of Kushners penetrating conception of ?Angels in America?, testing the conventional politics to the new political issues of the 1980s: homosexuals. Is Feminism Really A Theme In Ibsens, A Dolls House? EssayThe graphic details Kushner describes about living and dying with the disease give both the audience a view of a horrifying disease and a hope for the future. His writing in this element is not pessimistic, as it could easy be, but instead very hopeful through the death scenes to the end of the play:PRIOR: ? Im almost done. The fountains not flowing now but in the summer its a sight to see. I want to be around to seeit. I plan to be. I hope to beThis disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will becommemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We wont die secret deaths anymoreWewill be citizens. The time has come? (Part Two: Epilogue). The most potent command on how to look on the AIDS Epidemic is written metaphorically in Kushners character Aleksii, the worlds oldest living Bolshevik:?If the snake sheds his skin before a new skin is ready, naked hewill be in the world, prey to the forces of chaos. Without hisskin he will be dismantled, lose coherence and die. Have you,my little serpents, a new skin (Part Two: Act I, scene i). Kushners research shows and gives such a clear view of this disease and its effect on society. Though he is hopeful throughout some of the play about AIDS, he does not make any scene dealing with the virus pleasant to imagine but real and horrible as it is. The world of today is not of free and easy going lifestyles as in previous generations, and the theatre of the period reflects that. This ?epic for our epoch? brought to the stage the realism of the political world, the gay community, and the AIDS virus (Kelly). These social elements were successfully faced head-on by Kushner and transferred just as successfully to the stage. ?Angels in America? is a play that searches into that new and frightening aspect of modern life and has the ?transforming power of imagination to turn devastation into beauty? (Lahr). Audiences and readers of the future may see these plays as dated, but they were monumental at the time and still are even today some 13 years past the setting. The subject and the courage to bring these issues to the stage were one of sheer amazement. The imagination used has no parallel that television or movies can or could ever present. The poetic vision along with the concrete images and controversial issues make ?Angels in Ame rica? a masterpiece and Kushner an artist. Works CitedAngels In America Part One: Millennium Approaches. Tony Kushner. Royal National Theatre and Nick Hern Books, London. 1992. Angels In America Part Two: Perestroika. Tony Kushner. Royal National Theatre and Nick Hern Books, London. 1992. ?Tony Kushner: The award-winning author of ?Angels in America advises you to trust neither art nor artists.? Tony Kushner:Andrea Bernstein. Mother Jones, http://www.mojones.com. ?Reviews of ?Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika?Kelly, Kevin. The Boston GlobeLahr, John. The New YorkerLucas, Graig. Winship, Fredrick M. United Press International. Tony Kushner Offical Web Site, www.irsociety.com/kushner.htmlTheater