Gamm Theatre offers a transcendent telling of Tony Kushner's ‘Angels in America: Part One'
The story revolves around his diagnosis and illness, but Prior's life serves as a launching pad for weighty discussions about liberalism, conservatism, and race relations during the Reagan years. And there is no shortage of philosophizing about how the past shapes the present. The play also finds parallels between Judaism and homosexuality, reminding us about how swiftly a fearful and divided nation marginalizes, stigmatizes, and ostracizes 'others.'
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It is no wonder that the play is long — seven-and-a-half-hours in total — and told over two separate performances: 'Part One: Millennium Approaches,' which runs through June 15, and 'Part Two: Perestroika,' which runs from Sept. 25 to Oct. 12. Both are directed by Brian McEleney, who knows his way around this work having played the pivotal role of Prior Walter in Trinity Repertory Company's acclaimed 1996 production.
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What is brilliant about this audaciously ambitious work is that it is at once imaginative and unpretentious, uncompromising and affable, and hard to watch but impossible to look away. What is particularly maddening is Kushner's constant intertwining of diatribes with dialogue, reality with drug- and disease-induced fantasy, and horror with humor.
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Also, most actors play multiple roles to demonstrate the elasticity of gender, social and cultural identities, as well as the implicitly theatrical nature of this work. And as our nation once again gravitates toward ignorance and intolerance regarding LGBTQ+ communities, this play is — as Hilton Als duly noted — necessary.
Director McEleney and his designers fully embrace the necessary nature of this work by having it drive the show's production values. The permanent set that dominates the Gamm Theatre stage, courtesy of Patrick Lynch, resembles the kind of filthy public restrooms in New York City's Central Park that hosted clandestine homosexual encounters in the mid-1980s, complete with sterile gray tiling tagged with profane graffiti and hate speech. The introduction of simple furnishings — in line with the playwright's call for a 'pared-down style of presentation' to make the show an 'actor-driven event' — serve to establish the various locations in which this three-act play takes place, but with the reminder of the illicitly and risk of homosexuality always in the background.
These scene-changing chairs and tables are brought onto and off of the stage while the previous scene is still taking place, which accentuates the intersecting lives of characters who have been touched by AIDS or by those infected by it. These include Prior's politically committed but not personally disconnected lover, Louis Ironson (Ben Steinfeld, whose powerful depiction of this guilt-ridden man is masterful); Roy Cohn, a toxic, high-profile prosecuting attorney and powerbroker who refuses to admit he is gay (a mesmerizing Tony Estrella); a closeted Mormon legal clerk (a superb Jeff Church, whose stiff posture and tailored suit (courtesy of designer David T. Howard) attempts but cannot contain this character's abundance of internal conflict); his emotionally unstable and Valium-addicted wife (Gabrielle McCauley, whose ability to phase in and out of her character's drug-induced revelations and humorous delusions (courtesy of lighting designer Jeff Adelberg) is dazzling); and an ex-drag queen named Belize (an always intriguing Rodney Witherspoon II).
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Some of the best and most truthful acting moments occur on the periphery of these scenes, as characters linger before leaving the stage. There we find McCauley's Harper paralyzed and in tears, Church's Joe lost in his personal pain, and Regen's Prior and Steinfeld's Louis reflecting on their respective futures. Even after the play's opening scene, in which a eulogy of an old woman is presented, the incredible Phyllis Kay as Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz stands frozen for a moment, overwhelmed by her own words.
Just when you think that the acting on the Gamm Theatre stage could not get any better than that recently on display in '
A sign by the theater box office offers a warning about the play's profanity, brief nudity, and disturbing subject matter. Missing is mention of how 'Angels in America' is a cautionary tale that has come to fruition, which may very well be why this play's production is a late add to the already completed 2024/2025 season.
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ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART ONE
Play by Tony Kushner. Directed by Brian McEleney. At the Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, R.I. Runs through June 15. Tickets $70-$80, plus fees. 401-723-4266,
Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him
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