A quarter-century after stunning the theater world, one of the greatest theatrical journeys of our time returns to Broadway in an acclaimed new production from the National Theatre. As politically incendiary as any play in the American canon, Angels in America also manages to be, at turns, hilariously irreverent and heartbreakingly humane. It is also astonishingly relevant, speaking every bit as urgently to our anxious times as it did when it first premiered. Tackling Reaganism, McCarthyism, immigration, religion, climate change, and AIDS against the backdrop of New York City in the mid-1980's, no contemporary drama has succeeded so indisputably with so ambitious a scope.
Angels in America, that winged masterwork of Tony Kushner and the 20th Century, is back on Broadway in a revival weighed with expectations as heavy as the angel Bethesda in Central Park. With marquee-name stars - Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, Lee Pace - and the halo of approval from London audiences, the two-part, 7-hour-plus, gloriously subtitled 'Gay Fantasia On National Themes' remains as rich a theatrical experience as when Kushner won the Pulitzer back in '93 and his eccentric, visionary fever dream first blessed the stage (and too many dying men to count) with 'more life.'
At nearly eight hours, unfolding over two parts, the Broadway revival of Tony Kushner's 'Angels in America' is a significant commitment, temporal and financial. But one of the countless wonders of this instant-classic production is the way it energizes, instead of enervates, as it goes along, expanding in scale and scope, spinning out one surprise after another. By the time the stage literally cracks open near the end of the second part, and the main character Prior Walter (Andrew Garfield) ascends a neon staircase to heaven, this 'Angels in America' has placed its audience in a sustained state of exhilaration.
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