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11th out of 169 books
—
192 voters
Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika (Angels in America #2)
by
Tony Kushner
The second half of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic Angels in America, Perestroika steers the characters introduced in Millennium Approaches from the opportunistic eighties to a new sense of community in the nineties. "Not only a stunning resolution of the resounding human drama of Millennium Approaches, but also a true millennial work of art."--Frank Rich, The N...more
Paperback, 158 pages
Published
November 1st 1993
by Theatre Communications Group
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It's really too bad that we can't do fractions of stars, because I would like to note that I liked Part Two better than Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. Oh well, now it's noted.
Part Two started off, as expected, where Part One left off. Part One set the politically- and existentially-charged tones, so Part Two was able to jump right in. The dialogue is, as one would expect from a Kushner play, explosive. My only problem with this that I can think of right off the top of my hea...more
Part Two started off, as expected, where Part One left off. Part One set the politically- and existentially-charged tones, so Part Two was able to jump right in. The dialogue is, as one would expect from a Kushner play, explosive. My only problem with this that I can think of right off the top of my hea...more
For ridiculous reasons I read Perestroika before Millennium Approaches. I was able to grasp what was going on pretty easily and I got the privilege to wander in during the most emotionally charged scenes (Prior telling Louis that he doesn't know what hurt really is was beautiful, simple, and effective) but I lacked a lot of backdrop and had to piece together the feel of the era and the world that Millennium Approaches spent so much time creating.
I've been looking for a place to start chipping in...more
I've been looking for a place to start chipping in...more
Kushner’s epic work is inspired holy writ to me, imagining some of the most moving enactments of Law and Grace. The HBO movie adaptation is excellent, but it leaves out a few lines and scenes here and there. All who loved the movie should read through the play as well. The play is on its surface about AIDS and 80s politics. A ballet of relationships of erstwhile father-figures, friends and lovers dance through the stresses of illness, addiction and identity. There are angels, ghosts and prophets...more
One of my all-time favorite plays. Changed my life and my thoughts on it.
“Purple? Boy, what kind of a homosexual are you, anyway? That's not purple, Mary, that color up there is mauve.”
and of course:
“I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free.
It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and...
Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unencumbered, into the morning.”
“Purple? Boy, what kind of a homosexual are you, anyway? That's not purple, Mary, that color up there is mauve.”
and of course:
“I just wondered what a thing it would be...if overnight everything you owe anything to, justice, or love, had really gone away. Free.
It would be...heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and...
Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unencumbered, into the morning.”
Just wow. After having to read Millennium Approaches for a class, I decided to read Perestroika out of curiosity; but I never imagined it could be so...vast, so absolutely beautiful. The progression of the characters both in Perestroika alone and in the work as a whole is just riveting. No character is static, which kept my mind turning, trying to come to terms with each of them. I love the reality of their emotions. The reality of anger, of fear, of abandonment, of insane distancing. It all mes...more
Oct 04, 2010
Aaron
added it
Kushner writes tight scenes. No excess and plenty of room to live in them. The effects and the scene changes involved make me wonder how anyone could actually stage a production of this, but I'm not a designer. It's exciting and engaging but I can't tell what it means, possibly this is the difficulty with reading plays: so much of a play is in the staging that you almost can't really figure out what to make of it until you begin the process of imagining the production, which, for a producer or d...more
A couple of my favorite lines below, although the play is so chock full, it's hard to distinguish the distinguished. The first, however, is especially appropriate for "these times"...
Roy:... The worst thing about being sick in America, Ethel, is you are booted out of the parade. Americans have no use for sick. Look at Reagan: He's so healthy he's hardly human, he's a hundred if he's a day, he takes a slug in his chest and two days later he's out west riding ponies in his PJ's. I mean who does th...more
Roy:... The worst thing about being sick in America, Ethel, is you are booted out of the parade. Americans have no use for sick. Look at Reagan: He's so healthy he's hardly human, he's a hundred if he's a day, he takes a slug in his chest and two days later he's out west riding ponies in his PJ's. I mean who does th...more
I go back and forth. Which part of Angels in America do I like more? Such an interior debate is really a sign of my continued bondage to modernist taxonomic urges, but that doesn't stop the back and forth. Perestroika offers a compelling, hard look at...I have no better word than America. Kushner has definitely done his homework. So much so, in fact, that I worry about readers not familiar with Mormon/Jewish cosmologies (not to mention the nuance of 80s US politics) missing the phenomenal symbol...more
I think this play is trying to be really both really gritty and hard and yet somehow soft, which it does but it doesn't seem to be able to coalesce entirely for me. I still really like it. I don't recommend it for everyone, not by a long shot, because it is pushing a lot of buttons and could be highly offensive. But somehow, through all that, it manages to grapple with really difficult issues from a harsh perspective, issues we often only want to view from a positive perspective (especially insi...more
It was astonishing. Kushner created something that kind of transcends normal theater and exposes the problems and prejudices that exist in America, whether those problems be in the public eye or on a personal level. It touches on religion, identity, community, and forgiveness in ways that are so indirect yet almost so obvious. I want to avoid sounding pretentious here, but it's a play that really everyone should read (or see) at some point in their lifetime. It's not one to miss.
Woooowwwwww.
Despite its rather long duration for a play, comprising some seven hours acted all out, this is very tightly written. Each little scene, every bit of dialogue, has some reach or development or meaning to it. The characters are passionate and dynamic. All of them matter. All are played by the same little group of actors.
This play goes over a lot, and I'm not really sure I can give the play its proper due with my meager summaries. Politics, gnosticism, love, class, how God has abandone...more
Despite its rather long duration for a play, comprising some seven hours acted all out, this is very tightly written. Each little scene, every bit of dialogue, has some reach or development or meaning to it. The characters are passionate and dynamic. All of them matter. All are played by the same little group of actors.
This play goes over a lot, and I'm not really sure I can give the play its proper due with my meager summaries. Politics, gnosticism, love, class, how God has abandone...more
1 like · like · see review
Delightful-- Roy Cohn and Belize being the highlights. Still, it's not as structurally sound as its predecessor, the end scenes muddle together, weakening climactic points. In the HBO adaptation, it's not surprising that this is the only section that Mike Nichols takes tremendous liberties with.
As ambitious as Part One is, this one really goes off the rails. It was around the time the angel started ejaculating that I realized that this man was a truly unique presence in theater. No, you did not read that wrong.
I read Parts One and Two of this play for a class that I'm taking, and didn't like both. I will admit that the subject matter made me uncomfortable (gay relationships on many levels, but one man is LDS); however, even beyond that, I thought the plays played in to too many stereotypes that are already held about homosexuals and Mormons. Rather than moving the conversation beyond these stereotypes, Kushner simply keeps the audience there. Neither play really ended (which also might be Kushner's in...more
Part 2 of the play is similar to Part 1, except more extreme. Part 2 is both stranger and more profound. The reference to politics, religion, and sexuality become more overt.
Jun 06, 2011
Dawn
added it
I liked Part II,(view spoiler)...more
Having seen a stage production and the HBO miniseries, I figured I should, at some point, read the actual play(s). Not disappointed. So good.
The second part of this historical pagaent, Perestroika (from the Russian "restructuring") -- seeks to show through the governmental and medical indifference of the AIDS crisis, the selfishness of socio-economic greed, and even the personal attempt pretend to be anyone other than who we are, that the universe needs to restructure itself. As one of Kushner's characters, Prior Walter, says: "The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."
I still feel the piece might have be...more
I still feel the piece might have be...more
the highest compliment I can pay this play is that it MADE ME WANT TO READ MORE. a Roy Cohn biography, perhaps?
Blown away by a Sheffield Crucible production. Was almost ready to walk out at half-time. Couldn't have been dragged out in the second part.
Not as good as part one, but very much worth seeing, probably the greatest American play of the late twentieth century.
A great play and a must read for gender literature.
Landmark play but I didn't quite get it.
More Life.
Of course I loved “Perestroika” as well. It starts where “Millennium” ends and the characters are more developed. Actually amazingly developed: their anger, abandonment, fear and hope ... is palpable. Yet they never lacks humour. This part is more symbolic, maybe even grotesque (in a good way) and heart breaking. Quite hard and profound picture of America (religious and political). Oh and indeed:”Yugoslavia?” LOL
Though the I enjoyed the emotion, the musicality, and the shock of the first part in the Angels in America duo, I found the final half lacking. Though Kushner continues to take the reader/theatre-goer on a fantastic voyage into a world where the physical and metaphysical cross, he becomes pedantic. His politics and lifestyle overtake the plot. We discover in the end that either you agree with Kushner or you are not an "angel in America."
Perestroika picks up where Millennium Approaches leaves us. It gets darker and more intense as the story develops. One is forced to stare the cold hard facts right in the eyes, to illness, through self-torment, through self-doubts, through heartbreaks. As intense and difficult as the story goes, there are a good amount of humour in the text. In the end, the story wraps up giving us hope and faith. More life. The great work begins.
Definitely didn't live up to the first part of the play which I loved. This play wasn't bad and there were parts that I really enjoyed, however, I feel that this would be a very hard play to put on and not have a lot of the scences turn out cheesy/hoaky. And the ending was a bit preachy and really didn't do anything for me.
Interesting, but I think I struggled a bit since I haven't read a play in forever. After finishing part 2, I watched the HBO mini-series which totally brought the story for life to me. I now better understand the powerful story that has been created. I just needed a visual to tie it all together for me.
This would have only gotten four stars, if not for the existence of Act Four, Scene 2 and the line "TALK TO HER YOURSELF, BULLWINKLE! WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE, A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR?" Which is up there with Scene 1 of St. Joan as one of the most brilliant things I've ever read.
Also, Belize is FABULOUS.
Also, Belize is FABULOUS.
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Tony Kushner is an award-winning American playwright most famous for his play Angels in America, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. He is also co-author, along with Eric Roth, of the screenplay of the 2005 film Munich, which was directed by Steven Spielberg and earned Kushner (along with Roth) an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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“Nothing's lost forever.”
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“If He ever did come back, if He ever dared to show His face, or his Glyph, or whatever in the Garden again— if after all this destruction, if after all the terrible days of this terrible century, He returned to see how much suffering His abandonment had created, if all He has to offer is death, you should sue the bastard. That’s my only contribution to all this theology: sue the bastard for walking out. How dare He.”
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Jun 25, 2012 06:24pm