Angels in America: Part Two – Perestroika (2017)

*A few spoilers from Part One.*

The second half of Angels in America. As with Part One, it’s a certified beast, over three-and-a-half hours long. Even as there’s plenty to like about this production, and the play itself, I still concede that it doesn’t fully click for me.

After receiving a vision from an Angel, Prior rejects any suggestion that he was just hallucinating due to his illness and wonders what to do about his prophecy, finding guidance in an unlikely source. Roy, who deeply compartmentalizes his work and politics from his sexuality, finds his health declining due to AIDS. Joe has left his wife and entered into an affair with Louis, but as complications arise between them, it’s uncertain whether they’re really able to be together.

In an odd way, Perestroika is both more grounded and more out-there than Millennium Approaches. Things get ugly—with characters’ experiences with HIV, with relationships, with God, and with themselves. Characters try to be better then regress, they find moments of clarity then get wracked by self-doubt, and they laugh in the face of death then cling desperately to this mortal coil. But in amongst a lot of intense reality is also some wildly-fantastical scenes of celestial visitors. Prior gets a glimpse of how small he is within the scope of the heavens, but at the same time, that gives his own tiny life even more value.

The ideas are complex, and while I was able to sink down into some of them, others eluded me. Not sure if it’s just me/my attention span (there honestly aren’t a ton of things that can keep me engaged for over three-and-a-half hours,) or if the production itself is leaving me a little cold.

The cast is the same from Part One. In this half, I’m still especially drawn in by Russell Tovey as Joe, who’s forced to reckon with what he’s made of in serious ways. Susan Brown’s ensemble role is also a standout here. Among others, she plays Joe’s mom Hannah and an apparition who shares a history with Roy, and both roles go to interesting places in Perestroika.

Andrew Garfield continues to not quite work for me as Prior, which is a bummer. I do like him better here than in Millennium Approaches, so that’s a positive. There are more instances here where I feel like his performance is coming from an honest place. But there are still plenty of scenes where I can “see the strings,” so to speak, where I can feel the “Andrew Garfield Plays Gay Leading Role!” headlines writing themselves in the air. It keeps me from being able to settle into his performance and fully relate to Prior as a person, which obviously hampers the proceedings.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, sexual content, language (including homophobic slurs,) drinking, and disturbing imagery.