Angels in America – Part One: Millennium Approaches is the first half of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play that explores the intersecting lives of several New Yorkers in the mid-1980s, during the height of the AIDS crisis and amidst the social and political tensions of the Reagan era. The play intertwines politics, religion, sexuality, and identity in a deeply human and often surreal narrative.
The play follows several interconnected characters in New York City:
Prior Walter, a gay man, has recently been diagnosed with AIDS. His illness strains his relationship with his partner, Louis Ironson, who is emotionally overwhelmed and eventually abandons Prior. Prior’s best friend, Belize, a former drag queen turned nursing care worker, provides the stability and strong shoulder to assist Prior through the scariness of the disease that currently inhabits his body.
Joe Pitt, a closeted Mormon and Republican law clerk, is offered a promotion by his mentor, the notorious and real-life figure Roy Cohn. Joe is torn between ambition and his inner turmoil about his sexuality and his failing marriage to Harper, a deeply anxious woman who experiences hallucinations (Mr. Lies) and struggles with a pill addiction. Joe begins to pursue a relationship with Louis in order to escape and find himself.
Hannah Pitt, Joe’s mom, also Mormon, receives a phone call from her drunken son one night, proclaiming his homosexuality. She sells her house, in Utah, and buys an airplane ticket to NYC to assist where she can. Her journey is a powerful one within this story, navigating from rigid religious beliefs to meeting people around her “where they are”.
Roy Cohn, a powerful, ruthless attorney, is also diagnosed with AIDS but refuses to admit it publicly, insisting he has “liver cancer” to maintain his image. He is haunted by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, the woman he helped prosecute and execute during the McCarthy era.
Throughout the play, hallucinations, ghosts, and supernatural elements blur the line between reality and fantasy. Prior begins having visions of angels and hears prophetic messages, suggesting a larger cosmic significance to his suffering.
The play ends on a cliffhanger with the arrival of an angel crashing through the ceiling of his bedroom, declaring Prior to be a prophet, setting the stage for the second part, Perestroika.
“Greetings, Prophet! The Great Work Begins.” These lines are powerful and symbolic. The Angel calls Prior a “Prophet”, signaling a divine mission or purpose, and declares that “The Great Work” is starting — a cryptic reference that sets the stage for the more philosophical and political themes of Part Two, Perestroika.
Characters are left at critical turning points—struggling with love, identity, mortality, and the possibility of change at the dawn of a new millennium.
