This is another Andrew Rannells project that I just sort of happened upon on IMDb. I wasn’t anticipating its release, there was no announcement or trailer that I saw, one day it was just there. Released last fall, this is part of the genre of “DIY pandemic art created to raise money for charity,” of which there have been quite a few. It’s a nice piece that highlights one reason that the COVID-19 pandemic might be resonating particularly within the theatre community, and it also demonstrates how far remote projects have come since the early days of the pandemic.
Just what it says on the tin, this hour-long special offers up scenes from Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, a handful of vignettes performed by assorted actors. Like many of these pandemic-era fundraiser specials, all the actors filmed themselves remotely and the full piece was stitched together in post-production. The footage of the actors has been placed into different settings, some of which look like photographic backdrops while others are more artistic renderings of a setting around them. There’s also one scene, featuring Prior’s prophetic vision, in which the different actresses’ faces and voices continually shift/meld into one another, giving it an eerie, trippy feel. The overall digital “setting” isn’t exactly on the level of the Volume where Disney shoots The Mandalorian or anything, but the dreamlike quality of it feels fitting for the piece.
It’s completely understandable why people in the Broadway community might draw parallels between COVID-19 and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Apart from the obvious, a pandemic fueled by a devastating new virus, there’s also the failure of government to act as people died and the way that some people felt incited toward hate/bigotry by the crisis. On the whole, I don’t think the special highlights these parallels too much. The most resonant moments, for me, bookend the piece. During the opening score, footage from New York City in the ‘80s is superimposed over an image of that naval ship that was sent to the city in the spring of 2020 to act as an overflow hospital. And Prior’s final monologue is echoed and shared by dozens of people with masks, with a parting intertitle that they’re all people who’ve been affected by COVID, either personally or through their loved ones.
There’s a good cross-section of actors taking part in this. I spied Laura Linney, Paul Dano, and Brandon Uranowitz (I continue to love anyone who was in the Falsettos revival,) and the trippy prophecy sequence features no less than Patti LuPone, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Nikki M. James (who played Nabalungi in the original cast of The Book of Mormon.) A couple of my favorites were Vella Lovell (Heather from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend!) playing Harper opposite Andrew Rannells, and the always-excellent Brian Tyree Henry’s take on Prior in the final scene. Additionally, there are some talking heads from Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Cumming, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Rannells plays Prior as well. His scene with Lovell is the first in the special; if you’re familiar with Angels in America, it’s the scene where Prior and Harper seemingly intrude into one another’s hallucinations. Rannells nails the way that Prior’s dramatics and bitchery are partly who he is, partly an attempt to pretend he isn’t scared of what’s coming, and partly a way of holding onto a bit of his dignity and sense of self amid his illness. He handles the opening soliloquy well and then believably plays off of Lovell, even though they both presumably shot their parts separately.
Recommend?
In General – If you’re into theatre and/or enjoy art that’s a little out-there, I would. That said, it definitely helps if you’re familiar with Angels in America – I’m not sure how well it would translate to someone who didn’t know the plays.
Andrew Rannells – I think so. Even though he’s only in one scene, Rannells gets to be self-pitying, frightened, angry, skeptical, and funny. During the part of the pandemic that theatre and film/TV productions were shut down, it felt weirdly nice to see actors still having opportunities to flex their acting muscles.
Warnings
Language (including homophobic slurs,) drug references, and strong thematic elements.
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