Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s award-winning epic at National Theatre, describes the impact of Aids on the gay community in San Francisco in the 1970s, and the corresponding inaction of the Reagan administration. It is divided into two parts: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika.
Kushner, writing in anger and compassion, hope and despair, deals with politics, history, sex, racism and religion. His “gay fantasia” has a vast canvas. There are 30 characters: Jews, Mormons, ghosts and angels wander into each other’s dreams and hallucinations. The episodic action sprawls; scenes overlap, interlock and happen concurrently.
The revival is a major event. Marianne Elliott’s impressive production (designed by Ian MacNeil) has an excellent cast. Andrew Garfield’s performance – witty, bitter, frightened, hysterical – is perfect high camp, verbally and physically. He has a great scene when he wrestles with the angel.
Nathan Lane, making an instant comic impact with a series of rapid-fire phone calls, is unexpectedly cast as the ruthless lawyer, Roy Cohn, who refuses to admit his homosexuality. The infamous Cohn was young Donald Trump’s lawyer and adviser.
Director Joe Wright has found an interesting way to stage Bertolt Brecht’s didactic epic The Life of Galileo, about the scientist who clashed with the Vatican over his polemical writings. His mockery of Pope Urban VIII eventually led to Galileo’s being imprisoned and made to retract his statements.
The Young Vic has been turned into a planetarium. There is a circular pit with a catwalk round it. Some of the audience sit on cushions on the floor in the pit. Above them is a dome onto which is projected the night sky, lunar landscape and burning sun.
The actors remain actors acting a variety of carnival characters, rather than real people. House lights are switched off and on between scenes. The three-hour modern dress production overrides the play.
Brendan Cowell, in T-shirt and jeans, bounds the stage with restless energy. His Galileo, big, burly, bearded and immensely likeable, is a charismatic teacher, excitedly imparting his knowledge. I felt I was watching a lecture, albeit a highly theatrical illustrated lecture.
At National Theatre, Salomé is no longer a femme fatale. She has been transformed into a revolutionary – and the killing of Jokanaan is a political act, not sexual revenge. I enjoyed Yaël Farber’s spectacular production far more than her radical reimaginings, and wished she had directed Wilde or Strauss instead.
At Menier Chocolate Factory there’s a revival of Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage, which he wrote in 1987 specifically for Maggie Smith – a difficult act to follow. It was never a good play and the third act is particularly embarrassing. Trevor Nunn, Felicity Kendal and Maureen Lipman are hard-pressed to make it work.
At Royal Opera House Christopher Wheldon’s one-act ballet, Strapless, is based on the scandal which occurred when John Singer Sargent’s suggestive portrait, Madame X, was unveiled at the 1884 Paris Salon. The story would work better as a film. Given the subject matter – sex, hypocrisy and the Belle-Époque period – it is not difficult to imagine what Max Ophüls, director of La Ronde and Madame de…, might have done with it.
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