Angels in America script question

[Madame X]

I noticed that the Angels in America script was re-released with a choice of covers (with pictures from the HBO movie). Is this script the teleplay (tv version) or the staged version? It's the version with parts I and II in one volume.

This version:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1559362316/
qid=1107834658/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-9612161-1056923?v=
glance&s=books&n=507846

Or is the HBO version identical to the staged version, making this question pointless?

Sorry if I'm using incorrect terminology, but I'm just a civilian here playing in the land of actors.

Thanks in advance.

[luvtheEmcee]

There are a few small cuts and changes in the HBO one from the original script, but I think the one with the movie cover is the original play. It's like when they put a movie cover on a book - it's still the book, not the screenplay.

[MargoChanning]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the full script with the HBO cover is word-for-word exactly the same text as the original scripts (one each for Part One and Part Two) with the two posters for the Broadway productions on the covers.

[luvtheEmcee]

They cut the scene where Roy (or his ghost, maybe?) kisses Joe. That's the only specific change I can think of offhand, but I think there might be a few tiny word changes here and there.

[Madame X]

Did this scene make it to the stage? Thanks.

[MargoChanning]

I don't have the HBO cover version, but do they include the "optional" scenes in Perestroika (which were actually staged in previews in Broadway) where Roy is God's lawyer in the back of the limo and the extra heaven scene with Prior and the Rabbi and Louis' grandmother?

[luvtheEmcee]

Nope, Margo. Neither of those were in the film. The Rabbi only appears in the very beginning at the memorial service and at the cemetary, and we never see Louis' grandmother.

Back to the scene with Joe and Roy after Roy's death - it was filmed, but then cut. I wish it had been included on the DVD, at least.

[MargoChanning]

Very interesting, thank you.

If you pick up the copies of the earlier editions of the script (there's a box set with both, as well as each individually), there are "extra scenes" which apparently are now routinely cut (with Kushner's approval) that were in the original Broadway production and are rather fascinating, especially if you are just reading the script and not staging the actual play (staging them, these scenes push the running time past three hours).

Actually, I really wish that Kushner at some point would agree to publish the pre-Eureka 10+ hour version of the script, if for no other reason, just to give those of us who know and love the final version so well, further insight into the development of the play and the characters.

There's a great PBS documentary about the play in which Kushner is interviewed and he casually mentions that "Prior is a cater-waiter who discovers he has AIDS." Well, there's nothing in the final version of the play that mentions Prior's occupation before his first scene with Louis on the park bench, but I've found out that Kushner had written several whole scenes that were cut with Prior as a cater-waiter and other background scenes that were (probably righfully) deemed superfluous. I'd LOVE to see them at some point.

[Madame X]

Does the non-HBO cover version include these "optional" scenes in Perestroika? I'm basically looking for the most comprehensive version out there that's closest to the staged version.

[Madame X]

Beat me to the post Margo...thanks for the info you guys.

[luvtheEmcee]

Thanks, Margo. I'm going to look into that boxed set. I've literally broken the bindings on my copies of the script. Do you know if that PBC documentary is available anywhere? I'd love to see it.

Madame X, I don't think so. I haven't read mine in a while, if what you're referring to are the limo scene and the other one that Margo mentioned, no.
ETA - sorry, we posted at the same time.

[BlueWizard]

where Roy is God's lawyer in the back of the limo and the extra heaven scene with Prior and the Rabbi and Louis' grandmother?

As much as I love the play, I'm glad these scenes are optional because, reading them, I found them quite awkward and the comedy not subtle enough. How often are they performed? Were they in the final, post-preview Broadway production?

There's a great PBS documentary about the play in which Kushner is interviewed and he casually mentions that "Prior is a cater-waiter who discovers he has AIDS."

I'm glad this was cut -- if Prior inherited enough money to pay for that luxurious apartment, why would he be working as a waiter?

[Delphine]

Margo, just to touch upon Prior's occupation, Kushner wrote that Prior worked as a club designer as well as a caterer, living off a small trust fund.

[MargoChanning]

Only in the movie does Prior have a "luxurious" apartment -- not in the stage version. In the original stage production, he and Louis lived together in a modest apartment -- the size of it and how "nice" it is was unclear. It's one of the many mistakes and failures of the Nichols' film -- I don't think he had much understanding of the characters, their plight and of the gay activist movement of the 80s which is absolutely an essential underpinning of Kushner's writing of the play, but totally absent in the film (Wolfe "got it" completely, as a gay man who lived in downtown New York in the 80s, but a lot of small critical details clearly flew over Nichols' head).

I've always sort of assumed that Prior and Louis' apartment was (probably a one bedroom or so) somewhere in the East Village, for various reasons -- neither he nor Louis had a lot of money, even if Prior had some inheritance not mentioned in the play (so they'd probably be in the East, not the West Village); that was the center of the ACT-UP movement at the time the play was set; the hospital Prior and Roy ended up in was likely St Vincent's (11th & 6th, a short walk away and which then and now is where most people with AIDS in NYC end up being cared for -- on the 14th floor ... actually the 13th, but called "14th" because people think it's bad luck, otherwise); Louis being so comfortable wandering through and getting an apartment in the Alphabet City of the mid-80s means he must have "known" and spent a certain amount of time in the East Village and Lower East Side -- east of A -- of that time. Those who didn't know the area well (especially someone as skittish as Louis) would have been totally scared to death of it, then.

[beacon1]

Which explains Joe's reaction when he goes home with Louis... :o)

And, there were some bits of dialogue moved around, the beach scene is different (not a make-out session as in the stage play), Harper and Joe don't have the joint "vision"/hallucination" while Joe is in bed with a sleeping Louis. Otherwise, if you compare the two it is amazing at just how close the film adaptation is--thanks to the fact the Kushner wrote both. I believe that only he could have created this beautiful screen adaptation.

I love AIA. I really do! I have AIA on tape and I have the playbook and the soundtrack from the HBO film.
(*straight, active (practicing) Mormon gal speaking here*

[robbiej]

Oh...and Nichols forgot to bring the funny.

Never forget to bring the funny when you do AIA.

[beacon1]

I love this picture of the entire cast together. A rare one from
Elle magazine.

[BlueWizard]

Is there a larger version available?

[LuvUrBatBoy]

The film also had a modified version of the scene in the Mormon visitor center where the Mormom Diarama woman talks to Harper. In the play, Prior is also in the room with Harper and Hannah and has one of my favorite dialog exchanges in the show:

Hannah: You...what are you doing here?
Prior: This is a visitor's center...I'm visiting.

[beacon1]