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.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Classics

158 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a madman's undertaking, Angels in America.

It's a work of staggering grandiosity and ambition, no doubt. To portray human drama intimately and without pretension; to examine the politics and morality at play in a cross-section of not-too-distant history; to create a cast of characters that are three-dimensional and complex; to ruminate on the Big Stuff, love and death and forgiveness, and the Contemporary Stuff, homosexuality and modern religion and partisanship; to weave all these things into a gripping, moving, hilarious, intense, strange, wonderful story, all the while infusing it with all manner of Judeo-Christian allusion and historical context and intriguing philosophy. Who on Earth would sign up for such a task of their own volition? Who could even attempt to carry all of this out?

Tony Kushner, apparently. And, by God, does he do a fucking spectacular job of it.

Perestroika is a very different play than Millennium Approaches, and you'll realise that quickly, but you'll understand just as quickly that the quality and the heart of the second remains just as high and just as true as in the first. While Part I cultivated a sense of eagerness and impending salvation mixed with a foreboding and a fear of judgment, Part II deals with the messy business of what happens after the Angel arrives, after the Great Work is undertaken.

It doesn't make sense to talk much about the plot, because it's a continuation of Part I and giving a way a little bit is liable to cause the whole spool to unravel, and I don't want to spoil anything. What I will say, though, is that I feel like I should've been unsatisfied, but I wasn't. In any other story, I probably would dislike the looseness, the lack of structure, the way that—objectively—not much actually happens (compared to Millennium, at least). But something about this play made all of that perfect. I still felt closure, and it felt like a coherent plot that didn't have the sort of intricate twists that a less talented writer has to rely on, simply because it didn't need them. The characters and the internal dynamics were more than enough.

This (Angels in America as a whole) is a very gay play, and I mean that in the absolute best way. And not just that many of the characters are gay (I don't think there's one heterosexual kiss in the entirety of Part II) but that homosexuality and AIDS and drag and such are dealt with really well, with such tenderness and introspection and searching for truth. Kushner himself is gay so this shouldn't be surprising, but it still is; because on television and in movies and even in several books, the most we see of gay people are their surfaces, very rarely do authors or creators take the time to consider gay characters not based on how they can further the plot or help the (always hetero) protagonist, but what they're like as people, how being gay affects their lives and their relationships. Kushner doesn't stick to focusing on saccharine positives (cheery, sassy Gay Best Friend) nor on melodramatic negatives (Bury Your Gays). Prior, Louis, Belize, Joe, Roy—being gay affects them all in different ways, highlighting different facets of their personalities, revealing much more about themselves in how they react to it rather than by the simple (and rather bland) fact that they're "friends of Dorothy."

I should talk about the humour here too, which is something I forgot to mention in my review of Part I. Tony Kushner is funny, and the comedic touches in these two plays are always tasteful and they always land—Prior himself made me laugh out loud a few times, and not because he's the stereotypical witty queen, but because he's legitimately intelligent and fiercely emotional and the way he speaks his mind is bloody hilarious. And even apart from the dialogue, there's something so deliciously subversive in making the Prophet a gay man dying of AIDS, or fully embracing the hermaphroditism of angels, or sending the Valium-addicted Mormon housewife up to heaven for a little detour. Apart from being funny with their absurdity, they mirror the absurdity of life and history, and they're profound in that they blend the mundane and the fantastic together so well.

Which leads me right into where I wanted to end, my greatest praise of Angels in America: its astonishing ability to meld raw humanity with lofty philosophy. Authors who can paint beautifully in broad strokes, waxing poetic on grand points and skilfully weaving theories and belief systems, your Ralph Waldo Emersons or whathaveyous, they captivate us. Authors who can frame a simple conflict or personal dilemma to reveal the depths and complexities of the human heart, who can probe our spirit and our emotions with incredible subtlety and nuance, they make us feel. But authors who can do both, who can fuse the concrete and the abstract, the idyllic and the real, the broad and the narrow, the should-be and the is, who can play the part of the Angel and the AIDS patient and recognise that both are equally important and powerful—they're masterful. And rare.

And Tony Kushner is one of them.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part two of Angels in America, "Perestroika", strongly focuses on the idea that change for the better is possible, which, considering that the main character Prior is suffering from AIDS in the 1980's, is quite the strong message (this second part premiered in 1992). Sure, it's messier than part 1, Millennium Approaches, but considering that at the grim time the play was first produced, AIDS-patients came to see how Prior wrestles the angels in order to be allowed to stay on earth and witness a re-structuring of society (which is what Perestroika means and what happened at the time in the former Soviet Union), these are minor flaws. (FYI: Putin is of course ignoring the AIDS pandemic, so much for the motherland of the political Perestroika.)

Again, I listened to the award-winning audio production of the National Theatre, starring the likes of Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, which was great. Here's a clip of Lane as Roy Cohn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLhq8...

[Luke Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Man, I wish I liked this second part more than I did. It’s still good and has its great moments (characters and conversations and quotes that are going to stick with me for a long time), but the first act felt like a prologue, I didn’t particularly care for the Angel stuff (Kushner’s note of cutting a part of a scene where the angelic representatives are all gathered in a San Francisco-esque courthouse is something that I could see myself doing in a future production if I direct), and there were some moments that felt off, either not appropriate for the characters in my eyes or out of place.

Also, any time a playwright says what to expect from a show (Kushner said this was a comedy), I usually find the show to be the exact opposite genre-wise. However, Kushner did have a really nice afterword dispelling the myth of writing being a solitary effort, bringing up all the close friends that helped him along the way. It was very sweet. He also pointed out his own pretentiousness, and I like that self-awareness.

Perestroika picks up right where Millennium Approaches left off: Hannah trying to find her son and daughter-in-law in Brooklyn, Joe and Louis’s tumultuous relationship, Prior being visited by an angel, Roy’s declining health, and Harper’s declining sanity. From there, everything goes in many different directions, emotional highs and lows, and ups and downs. While this second part is weaker for me than the first, it’s still a strong journey worth investing in. Now to watch the miniseries....

[Mel Bossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a scene in the movie Still Alice when the maddeningly sexy Kristen Stewart reads Harper's last monologue from this play to her mother, and it tore my heart out HARD.

The words of the monologue were so unique and touching. I looked up the play and was happy to find it in the queer library close to my house. Read it in a day or two and I have to say I've never read anything quite like Angels in America before.

GOD I LOVE JEWISH WRITERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There I said it.

And GAY JEWISH WRITERS.

My brain had multiple orgasms reading Kushner's witty, stark, wild, righteously angry, politically incorrect, loving, generous, imaginative prose. I only have one question.

HOW?

I mean, how the fuck did he pull this off? Every character in here, from the life-affirming black nurse Belize (Drag Queen name), to Joe the closeted republican clerk, to his wife Harper, the fragile woman in love with her gay husband, to Prior, the terrified man AIDS who is visited by the Angel with the Silver wings, down to his all too human and cowardly boyfriend Louis who abandons him alone in a hospital... They lived. They were so vividly rendered. I ate this up like Tom Cruise eats up Scientology cookies.

And let's not forget the majestically honest and brutally uncompromising Roy Cohn.

Whew. This isn't a review. It's a plead to you all to read this read this read this!!!!

Yet, through all the humor and careful wake-up calls in this masterpiece--Tony Kushner's testimony--I began to feel raw like a fresh wound. Because that's what Angels in America really is twenty years later: a transcript of a time when men ten years younger than I am today were dying, dropping like flies, while the Reagan administration looked the other way.

Only through art, literature and in the hearts of those who still love them can those young men be remembered.

***

[Dani Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first part of this play about a month ago and found it fascinating despite its seemingly nonsensical elements. The reality underneath it remains clear even while literal angels are bursting through the ceiling. The second part, Perestroika, perfectly continues what Part One started. That being said, there is a difference in tone between the two parts, and Perestroika includes even more supernatural elements, blending more of reality with celestial appearances. Though I felt Part One had a clearer story, I believe Part Two brought a satisfying ending to everyone's story.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Perestroika" is the second play in the "Angels in America" series about the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980s New York City. The first play is "Millenium Approaches." The plays show the emotional toll of the disease on relationships, as well as the physical struggles for those dealing with AIDS. Both of the plays are political, and have religious elements with Mormon, Jewish, and WASP characters. In spite of the dark subject matter, author Tony Kushner injects many humorous elements into "Angels in America."

"Perestroika" is the more mystical of the two plays. Several gay characters have fever dreams and a pill-popping housewife has Valium-induced hallucinations. An Angel appears, the character Prior Walter is called the "Prophet," and he climbs a ladder into Heaven where he interacts with the council of Angels. Prior Walter returns to his hospital bed after his fever breaks.

The play is a call to action to fight injustice, offer better health care, and remove social stigmas. Although "Perestroika" ended in 1990, many of its its objectives are just as important in today's world. "Angels in America" won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play, and other additional honors.

[Laura Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean what is there to say other than: that's good art baby. that is some good art.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

unfathomable amounts of respect for anyone who has staged this

[oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

plays that make me believe in life

[Sara Gasana]

so full of life and suffering, but also immensely funny. this play questions ideology, principles and theory, and what happens when your experience of life does not coincide with your "theory of life." humans change and move and theory can rarely catch up, or turn back the clock, on progress. everyone should read/watch this play!

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh hi hello it's just the greatest play ever written.

[Javier Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

We can all stop our prayers for God to send His heavenly angels down to guide America to the new path that will eradicate it of its evils. The angels are here already. We need only take a collective look in the mirror and chant, USA! USA! USA! and the American Peresroika is on its way! The angels were we, the living all along. God left the building long ago.

[Angélique (Angel) · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 meshes together so well in a shower of emotions and ideologies and paradigms. Honestly, it's just hard to describe how much I enjoyed this play. Even the use of sex as a metaphor is handled so tactfully and candidly that it didn't turn me away from the play but really emphasized the tones and themes Kushner tried to present. The strongest part, however, was definitely the ending. The hope that just poured out of that last scene brought tears to my eyes, because it wasn't some fantasy hope filled with rainbows and unicorns, it was the hope of someone who knows that life sucks sometimes and that crap hits the fan unexpectedly sometimes, but that despite it all we can still keep moving forward. That sentiment is the most important thing I will take away from the entirety of Angels in America.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always a wonderful read.

Re-read to teach it. This read, I gained a real appreciation for its structure--down to the fact that part one opens with "Hello and Good morning" and part two ends with, "Bye, now."

[nadia | notabookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

despite a lower rating, part ii of this story is still incredibly heartbreaking and life-changing. can't stop thinking about how topical it is, all these years later; Prior really got to the bottom of it when he said all those things about progress vs. human desire for stillness, huh.

[elle vivian · Rating 5 out of 5]

UGH this play is so smart. you know a show is good when it completely breaks you down and builds you back up again. this play genuinely changed my life

[sj · Rating 5 out of 5]

always hits forever and ever

[Izzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand why this is considered a masterpiece. It’s a huge undertaking and I’m not sure if I have to words to describe how I feel after finishing both of these plays. It’s a mixture of euphoria, melancholy, wonder and confusion. I loved itttt and now I have to watch every recorded version of these plays. Could it have used an edit? Absolutely. It’s far too late for that though. I haven’t read a play in a really long time, and these plays remind me why I want to be an artist.

[Ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 (rounded up)

Hmm. Well. I don’t know quite what to say about this one. This somehow felt both over and underwhelming. The first play just had so much going on and I think my expectations for the ending were a lot higher?? It still had so many surprises and good moments, but the way Kushner tied up some ends just didn’t feel quite right. I still really appreciated this series, and it’s certainly convinced me to read more plays!

[caton clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

when you’re reading a play and think “i should get a tattoo of this line” you know it’s good/you’re going insane

[Wacik · Rating 5 out of 5]

boze to bylo dobre

[GwenViolet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huh. Maybe life is worth living after all. Perhaps Angels in America is a homosexual it's a wonderful life.

[monika · Rating 4 out of 5]

it’s scary how so much of this play is still relevant today

[Ula]

my "review" is under "Millenium Approaches", i just didn't realise "Angels in America" were split on goodreads at the time; so, yes, i've read "Perestroika" as well

[meowdeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"real love isn't ambivalent" "you cry, but you endanger nothing in yourself. it's like the idea of crying when you do it. or the idea of love"

""Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice. God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
Harper: That's how people change.”

"i hate America, Louis. i hate this country. nothing but a bunch of big ideas and stories and people dying, and then people like you. the white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. that was deliberate. nothing on Earth sounds less like freedom to me."

"i still want... my blessing. even sick. i want to be alive. i want more life. i can't help myself. i do. i've lived through such terrible times, and there are people who live through much much worse, but ... you see them living anyway. death usually has to TAKE like away. i don't know if that's just the animal. i don't know if it's not braver to die. but i recognize the habit. the addiction to being alive. we live past hope. if i can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best i can do. it's so much not enough, so inadequate but... bless me anyway. i want more life. and if He returns, take Him to court. He walked out on us. He ought to pay."

"Night flight to San Francisco; chase the moon across America. God! it’s been years since I was on a plane! When we hit 35,000 feet we’ll have reached the tropopause. the great belt of calm air. as close as I’ll ever get to the ozone. I dreamt we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air, and attained the outer rim, the ozone, which was ragged and torn, patches of it threadbare as old cheesecloth, and that was frightening.
But I saw something that only I could see, because of my astonishing ability to see such things: Souls were rising, from the earth far below, souls of the dead, of people who had perished, from famine, from war, from the plague, and they floated up, like skydivers in reverse, limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed joined hands, clasped ankles, and formed a web, a great net of souls, and the souls were three-atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone, and the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing’s lost forever. In this world, there’s a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.
At least I think that’s so.”

i would type the entire book in here if i could but i want to finish Olive Kitteridge

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

An imaginative play. Kushner’s humanism is appealing: we can keep going after loss and seek light without God.

[Abby Filsinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

While Perestroika is in and of itself a masterpiece, even if it can be a bit holier than thou, I fine Millennium Approaches to be much more interesting. Perestroika I still give 5 stars because of how much it has to say and it says it in its own voice and doesn’t explain itself and unapologetically shows its opinions. Not many play writes can truly do this. They think they do but Kushner, and when you read it you can see instantly, clearly didn’t care if it made sense to all of his audience. He wanted it to be something that would need to be discussed over and over again. The play is unrelenting and can be hard to follow at times but I understand and applaud all of Kushner’s reasons for writing how he did and how he didn’t pull any punches.

[Kar Wai Ng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six stars!!
Kushner wrote the play for 2 parts, 2 evenings — “I can’t get these people to change fast enough”, he said. Understanding that his characters all changed by the end of the play, and why, are crucial (just) to even start digesting this monumental piece of work. Just to start digesting. I was in a void of reading any new materials the next two days just to replay scenes over and over in my mind. And YouTube, I need to find the Angels in America series. Or if I would happen to be in NYC the next few months, I should catch the play.