Angels in America - Part One: Millennium Approaches

For its final drama of the 1900s, Southern Oregon University presents Tony Kushner's acclaimed play, Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. The play, its production and its realization lift the Department of Theater Arts to a new level of achievement, integrity and artistic courage. It will draw controversy here in this small Oregon city, more than in many of the metropolitan and international locations where Angels has been presented and gained praise. According to Dale Luciano, chair of the SOU theater arts department, several season ticket holders decided not to attend this one. The large-scale, 3 1/2-hour production, under Edmondson's direction moves fast. Strong characterizations and smooth, quick changes of some intensely-dramatic scenes sustain audience involvement. Author Kushner blends real names from recent history with fictional and imaginary characters.

The play is set in 1985-86, when Roy Cohn (Kasey Mahaffy) is an influential New York attorney, a power broker well connected in Washington and trying to improve that position. In 1953-54 Cohn, a boy wonder lawyer still in his 20s, was chief counsel to the U.S. Senate permanent investigations subcommittee, and closely associated with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R.-Wis.) in McCarthy's now infamous "Red Scare" investigations. As we meet Cohn in this play, he is trying to get Joe Pitt (Ty Hewitt) to work for him in Washington. Cohn's less-than-honorable reasons for this emerge in the play. Cohn is put off by Joe's hesitation. Joe must discuss the move with his wife, Harper (Rachel Sailor). Cohn tells Joe that if he wants something, he must take it and let nothing get in his way, adding that he is an expert divorce lawyer. Joe and Harper are Mormons. They operate within differing values from Cohn's.

With masterful storytelling and imagery, Kushner intersects themes of the latter American century into the play, concentrating them into personae that emerge as real, more than characters. Harper is a troubled woman, existing on Valium. Joe is experiencing a crisis in his sexual orientation. Louis Ironson (Christopher Edwards) and Prior Walter (Mitchell Young McNees) are a gay couple who have lived together about four years. In parallel with Joe and Harper's marriage, the relationship of Prior and Lou begins to crumble as Prior shows Kaposi's sarcoma, a sign of AIDS. Prior calls the spot on his arm, "The wine-dark kiss of the angel of death." Lou knows that he won't be able to care for his partner. Separately, Cohn developed AIDS, in 1986, which led to his death. Many of the scenes are philosophical or political dialogues between two actors.

To the credit of the players, Edmondson's direction, and lighting effects, these scenes aren't static, when they could be. In one of the most effective, Harper and Prior meet in an other-worldly plane. "What are you doing in my hallucination?" she asks him, and he answers that she is in his dream. Another outstanding scene, played with a wry edge, is between Lou (Edwards) and Belize (Rene' Thornton Jr.), as Lou describes his perception of the racial conflict (or non-conflict) in America to a black man. Where emotions run high in many scenes, performers could yield to a strong temptation to overact. To their credit, they don't.

A cast of 13 performs the play, with some actors doubling in roles. McNees, Mahaffy, Sailor, Hewitt, Edwards and Thornton play major roles. The play includes themes of death and corruption, physical and moral, yet is tempered with fantasy, irony, and humor. Luciano, the cast and crew deserve solid applause for presenting this play, and for doing it so well.