Reviews for Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

The average rating for Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-03-15 00:00:00 Xxx Xxx I looked forward to this conclusion of Angels in America, anticipating that Perestroika would be the resolution of an undisputed American classic. Alas, I was disappointed. It is a powerful work, full of ambitious experiments and powerful effects, but it is too diffuse and disorganized to fulfill the promise of the nearly perfect Millennium Approaches. I hesitated as I wrote the preceding paragraph, for fear I may be guilty of a common critical failing: criticizing a work for not doing what it never intended to do at all. Indeed, the author Tony Kushner himself issued this cautionary statement in his "Playwright's Notes": It should also be said that "Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika" are very different plays, and if one is producing them in repertory the difference should be reflected in their designs. "Perestroika" proceeds forward from the wreckage made by the Angel's traumatic entry at the end of "Millennium". A membrane is broken; there is disarray and debris. Nicely put, but I don't buy it. Disorder can exhibited without being modeled; at the very least, they can be contained within an overarching structure. King Lear does this, so does Moby Dick. But I don't think Perestroika--as fine as it is'achieves this sort of greatness. The sequence of Perestroika's scenes is anything but inevitable, and individual scenes sometimes end without anything approaching resolution. Louis condemnation of Joe's politics, though rhetorically effective, is dramatically inadequate, Roy's decline seems rushed, and Joe just seems to get lost along the way. Worse, some scenes seem arbitrary, not really necessary at all. (Kushner admits as much in his "Notes," suggesting Act Five, Scene 5 can be severely truncated in performance, and Act Five, Scenes 6 and 9 cut entirely.) Still, with all its faults, this is an effective work. The angels are appropriately alien and impressive, Louis' Kaddish for Roy, and Ethel's reconciliation with him, are extraordinarily moving, and the low key, gentle comic ending strikes just the right note. For all its "disarray and debris," everything in Perestroika affirms Kushner's beliefs that "the body is the garden of the soul" and that life is a continual restructuring (perestroika), a leap into the unknown. This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come

Review # 2 was written on 2020-04-03 00:00:00 Lun Lun The "Fantasia" part of "Angels" takes flight! If you haven't acquainted yourself with this magnificent work, the HBO series, the actual stage saga, or the script/play, just please DO. There is nothing else like it, the magic of the stage is palpable and felt with the same awestruck eyes of a mere reader. (Mortal.) This is the stuff of dreams, a nectar for both literature and modern history buffs. And adding religion, politics, sex, geography, fiction-fantasy, dream-states... it is all too perfect to be deemed as such. Plus, that's the point of the messy, beautiful dream; its a wonder NOW, as it was THEN. Alongside the musical Jonathan Larson Rent, it completes this most perfect of treasures of hope in the midst of the life-altering horrors of the 80's NYC HIV/AIDS epidemic.