Review: Roundhouse & Olney's ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES an Artistic and Historic Triumph

The pleasures of watching Roundhouse and Olney Theatre Center's revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America cycle are many. There's the dynamite, all-star cast led by Mitchell Hébert 's high-octane, expletive-laden performance as the notorious Red-baiter (and Donald Trump mentor) Roy Cohn; there's the realization that Kushner's brilliant prose is just as compelling and relevant now as it was 25 years ago when it premiered.

But what outstrips them all is the realization that when younger generations come to see this show for the first time, we might have to explain why some of the gay characters seem trapped by such profound self-hatred; why they cannot reach out to their families in their hour of need; and why they can't even tell hospital staff that they are visiting their significant other. They might ask, hey-isn't this just a little melodramatic? What's with all this dystopian stuff, aren't we past that already?

They'll ask, because to a remarkable extent we are past it. Marriage equality is the law of the land, and acceptance of the gay and transgender communities-the full spectrum of orientations and identities-is common among a "Millennial" generation that Kushner could only dream of when he first sat down to write his magnum opus. They weren't even born in the early 90's when this play premiered; they will soon emerge as our nation's movers and shakers. And the beauty of this is that Kushner's humane, sensitive portrayal of the AIDS crisis at its height, his love for all of his characters-Roy Cohn included-blazed a trail that helped make today's culture of increasing acceptance possible.

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches is not just a national treasure, it is a glimpse of history in the making; it is a then-marginalized community seizing the stage, demanding attention, and beginning the long process of changing hearts and minds across the country. To watch the kaleidoscope of characters, brilliantly portrayed here by some of Washington DC's finest actors, can be incredibly moving. Not just for the performances themselves, which are memorable indeed, but for how those performances remind us of the changes this play made possible.

Kushner skillfully weaves together the lives of New Yorkers in the mid-1980's, when Ronald Reagan was flush with his 1984 re-election landslide and the conservative social and economic agenda was on the march. A new disease has emerged, primarily among the gay community, which attacks the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to a host of illnesses. Many will die in pain, in squalor, and alone; others will survive the disease, while others will remain untouched, but haunted for the rest of their days by what they have witnessed. This was Kushner's world, his nightmare, and he has channeled the joy, despair and ugliness of those days to great effect here.

The link among the story lines here is Roy Cohn, eternal bogey-man of the Left and Sen. Joseph McCarthy's right-hand man at the height of the Red Scare of the 1950's. His law firm boasts a young Mormon lawyer, Joe (the touchingly vulnerable Thomas Keegan), whose estrangement from his wife Harper (the inimitable Kimberly Gilbert) has led her to an addiction to valium and a sequence of bizarre hallucinations. The reasons for Joe's aloof behavior, his long evening walks alone, become visible only after a long and intense marital struggle.

Also among Cohn's office pool is Louis (a fine turn by Jonathan Bock), a lowly, hyper-intellectual clerk who is the first to suspect the reason why Joe seems so distracted. When Louis's lover, Prior Walter (the passionate and moving Tom Story) is diagnosed with AIDS, their relationship swiftly goes into a tailspin. Louis soon retreats from Prior's embrace and into his bizarre, maddeningly self-indulgent fantasy world of ideas, leaving a mutual friend Belize (the incredible Jon Hudson Odom, in just one of many roles) to comfort Prior and call Louis to task.

Kushner gives us two victims of the disease - Roy Cohn and Prior Walter-each of whom has his own private and public melt-downs, seemingly for utterly different reasons. Poignantly for both, they end up sick and alone, and each of them has his own ghosts to deal with; for Cohn, it is the spirit of Ethel Rosenberg (Sarah Marshall, in one of her many star turns here), whose execution for treason he engineered in spite of evidence that she didn't deserve it. For Prior Walter-whose passion for fabulous costume is on full display here, thanks to designer Ivania Stack's brilliant work-the revelation is of a more spectacular and ultimately comforting kind.

Given the spectacular entrance of an actual angel (played by the versatile Dawn Ursula) at the climax of the play, it's easy to forget that the "angels" Kushner refers to are not just the ones with feathers. The angels in mid-80's New York come in all varieties, from office grunts to street urchins to lovers to ... well, you name it. They're everywhere, even if you only note them in passing.

The scope of this production is truly breath-taking, but there are some curious choices in staging which can be confusing, especially for those unfamiliar with Kushner's work. Whether for reasons of spatial economy or, simply, economy, some of the scenes that seemed designed for separate spaces are combined here; a Brooklyn apartment and a hospital ward are folded into each other, and there's the-famous scene in which Harper and Prior meet each other, psychically. Kushner calls for each of them to stand in his/her own respective lavatory, but although Gilbert and Story play their encounter to hilarious effect something is lost when their separateness is reduced to togetherness, a gathering around a dressing-room table.

And you can call me tone-deaf but I have yet to understand the function of the Grand Hotel-like staircase which dominates James Kronzer's set-perhaps the result of this being the site of both Parts 1 and 2 - "Perestroika," which will open in just a couple weeks. Time will tell.

It almost goes without saying that this production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches is essential viewing. The cast is finely tuned under Jason Loewith's direction, the nuances each actor finds in their lines are a joy to witness, and it is all the more affecting to think of the ways the world has changed, how these characters have become part of the American theatrical pantheon.

Audience Advisory: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches features mature situations, the somewhat discreet portrayal of sex, and vivid manifestations of various physical ailments (lesions, diarrhea, etc.).

Running Time: approximately 3 ½ hours, with two intermissions.

Performances are September 7-October 30 at the Roundhouse Theatre Bethesda, 4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD.

Tickets can be ordered by calling 240-644-1100, or by logging into http://www.roundhousetheatre.org/buy-tickets/calendar/.