1. Tony Kushner- Anthony “Tony” Robert Kushner was born in New York City 1956 to two classical musicians. One year later the family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana where Tony spent his childhood. Kushner has clear memories of being gay at age six, and says that growing up gay and Jewish in the Deep South “made him more conscious of his distinctive identity as he might not have in heavily Jewish New York City”. Kushner moved back to New York City to attend Columbia where he got a degree in medieval literature, and later went on to receive a M.F.A. from NYU. Kushner is most famous for his two part play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” which seemed to be an overnight hit when part one opened in 1992. The following year …show more content…
part two, “Perestroika”, had similar fame. New York Times theater critic Frank Rich called it "a searching and radical rethinking" of political drama and "the most extravagant and moving demonstration imaginable" of the response to the taboo subject of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s. Angels in America won the Tony Awards for Best Play in 1993 and 1994 as well as 1993's Pulitzer Prize for Drama. With all this success came controversy. Many productions were protested, and in a small town in North Carolina a 1996 production had to be protected under court order after officials threatened to prosecute the company for violating indecent- exposure laws. The play was seen as open opposition to Reagan’s and Bush’s somewhat homophobic administrations. Kushner continues to write for stage and film, as well as delivering addresses at universities and political demonstrations. 2. Major Characters- Louis Ironson- A word processor working for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a stereotypical neurotic Jew. He leaves his boyfriend, Prior, when they discover that Prior has contracted AIDS. He later meets Joe and starts a relationship with him. Prior Walter- Early in the play Prior discovers he has AIDS and is left by his boyfriend, Louis, but is still cared for by his friend, Belize. Throughout the play he is visited by an Angel. Joe Pitt- Joe is a closeted gay Mormon who is married to Harper. He is the chief clerk for justice Theodore Wilson of the Federal Court of Appeals. He struggles with his sexual orientation but eventually leaves Harper for Louis. Harper Pitt- Harper is a drug abusing agoraphobic Mormon who is married to Joe. While hallucinating because of her drug abuse, she discovers that her husband is gay. Eventually Joe leaves her for Louis. This leaves her feeling free and better about herself and confident enough to start a new life in San Francisco. Roy Cohn- Roy is a very successful lawyer and powerbroker who is in the closet. Early in the play, Roy discovers that he has AIDS which he pawns off as liver cancer to keep his reputation intact. Ironically his death from AIDS reconnects him to the gay community that he has fought so hard not to be associated with. Belize- Norman Arriaga, known as Belize which is a drag name that stuck, is a former drag queen turned registered nurse. He and Prior used to date and are now best friends. He takes care of both Prior and Roy. Hannah Pitt- Hannah is Joe’s stern Mormon mother who moves to New York after her son comes out to her in a drunken late night phone call. She arrives in New York to find that Joe has already left Harper. She stays in New York tries to take care of Harper, but she is very harsh. She softens after two events: when she meets Prior and they become friends, and after a sexual encounter with the Angel The Angel of America- An Angel from heaven who visits Prior because she is looking for a prophet. 3. Plot Summary- The play is set in 1985 in New York City and follows two couples. After his grandfather’s funeral, Louis Ironson discovers that his boyfriend, Prior Walter, has AIDS. As Prior’s illness gets worse, so does Louis’s ability to cope with the situation and he eventually leaves Prior. Meanwhile, Joe and Harper Pitt, a Mormon couple, have troubles in their own relationship. Joe is a closeted homosexual who works in the same judge’s office that Louis works in. Joe is offered a job in Washington D.C. by Roy Cohn, a republican McCarthyist lawyer, deeply closeted gay man with AIDS, and Joe’s mentor. Joe says he has to think about accepting the job because he has to ask his wife about it. His wife, Harper, is a drug addicted agoraphobic who is scared and doesn’t want to move to Washington. In a drug induced hallucination, Harper realizes that Joe is gay and confronts him. He rejects the notion to his wife, but is secretly struggling with his sexuality and religion. Prior is being taken care of by a former boyfriend and drag queen, Belize who is a registered nurse and Prior’s good friend.
Prior is visited by ghosts and an angel who tell him that he is a prophet, but he denies the idea. Louis, distraught about leaving Prior, turns to Joe, who just came out to his mother, Hannah, and left Harper. Hannah coldly tells Joe that he is being ridiculous and decides to move to New York to help settle the matter. There she takes care of Harper and befriends Prior. Joe tells Roy that he cannot go to Washington. Roy, in an upset rage, tells Joe about his intervention with the Ethel Rosenberg trial that ensured her execution. As Roy gets sicker, he has to be put in the hospital. He is being taken care of by Belize, who doesn’t want to take care of Roy because of the kind if immoral person he is. The ghost of Ethel materializes to witness his last days. As he is dying she sings to him, and tells him that he has been disbarred because he has been unethical.
Louis tries to come back to Prior, but prior will not accept his apology. Belize tells Louis about Joe and Roy’s relationship. Louis is disgusted by Roy because of his personal and political history. He confronts Joe about it, they get into a physical alteration, Louis punches Joe, and they never speak
again. After an episode that leaves Prior in the hospital, the Angel appears. Prior and the Angel wrestle and Prior wins, granting him entrance into Heaven. There he asks the Angels to grant him more time on earth, but they can’t. He comes back to his body, and tells Louis that even though he loves him, he cannot take him back. Harper tells Joe that she is taking all of his credit cards and is moving to San Francisco. 4. Reflection- “Angels in America” is a powerful play that deals with many problems that America faced towards the latter part of the 20th century. The most prominent problem in “Angels in America” is the AIDS epidemic and how the country reacts to it. In addition to the epidemic, Kushner explores America through both openly gay and closeted homosexuals and the advantages and disadvantages of each pathway. He also explores the idea of how sexuality affects both political and religious views of heterosexuals and homosexuals. Finally, Kushner reflects on the most basic level of society when he was quoted saying, "The question I am trying to ask is: how broad is a community's embrace. How wide does it reach?" When you take away the petty things that people discriminate over like political views, religion, and sexuality you are left with human beings. It is easy to look over the fact that, though we are all individual, and we are a part of many sub-communities, we are all connected to each other in some way. 5. Setting- New York October 1986- February 1987 with an epilogue in February 1990. The setting is important because it is the chronical and geological center for the AIDS epidemic in America. It is in the middle of the Reagan presidency which the LGBT community has criticized for ignoring the AIDS epidemic because it mostly impacted gay men and African Americans. 6. Symbols- San Francisco symbolizes both an ideal and a failed community. To the Angels, heaven is modeled after the San Francisco that was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, which is coincidentally the day God left and never returned. The angels cannot function without God, so heaven cannot be restored to its former glory. However, the real San Francisco was rebuilt right away, and went on to become an accepting community ideal for outcasts and people who think differently. It represents the society that the characters longed and hoped for in the epilogue. Westward expansion has symbolized new beginnings and hope for many societies, especially in America. This idea is reinforced when we learn that Harper is starting her new life in San Francisco.
On a drive on Highway 50, through Nevada to see a real ghost town, Agnes finds a little girl named Rebecca who has been separated by her family who was looking Leister 's gold. The capper of the whole thing is that Agnes saw the whole thing in a dream, but she gets to the Goldberg Hotel and Saloon, she realizes the whole thing was real, especially the inside of her room. She soon finds out that the entire hotel is haunted by all kinds of spirits from past guests; which only serves to make Agnes 's vacation that much more interesting. She wants to find out what happened to the family. She knows with every fiber of her being that it was not just a dream, and that a little girl really did go missing in the night before Agnes showed up. Will they be able to find the missing kid or will a killer (called “The Cutter”) ruin their
The author of Casey at the Bat classifies the poem as humorous. The author most likely decided this due to the rhyme and irony in the poem. As mentioned before, Casey at the Bat includes humor such as rhyme, examples include the following; "If only Casey could but get a whack at that - we'd put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.", and "So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat, for these seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat." The other example of humor is irony. In the end of Casey at the Bat, Casey strikes out. At first Casey was like a super hero, because he seemed to have super human strength and appeared unable to be defeated. Casey's strength is exaggerated in the following text, "And now the air is shattered
The Killer Angles The novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara depicts the story behind one of bloodiest and highly significant battle of the American Civil War. The Battle of Gettysburg consisted of 51,000-casualties between the Union and Confederate army forces. Mainly focused on letters, journal entries, and memoirs, Shaara tells the story of Gettysburg by using characters from both sides of the “spectrum”, the Confederate and Union army. These characters grasp the revolving points of view regarding the impending days of the war. Countless numbers of those views develop from characters throughout the novel. The characters include the Confederates own General Lee, General Longstreet; the Unions own Colonel Chamberlain, and soldiers from
The Killer Angels is a historical novel that recounts the battle of the Civil War, specifically focusing on the Battle of Gettysburg. Set from June 29 to July 3, 1863 and told from the point of view of several soldiers and commanding officers from both sides, Michael Shaara effectively illustrates the sentiments behind the war that tore America in two, from the strategic battle plans to the emotional hardships endured by all.
The novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara depicts the story behind one of the bloodiest, and highly significant, battles of the American Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg. The battle consisted of 51,000-casualties between the Union and Confederate army forces. Mainly focused on letters, journal entries, and memoirs, Shaara tells the story of Gettysburg by using characters from both sides of the war. The characters chosen grasp the divergent views regarding the impending days of the war, and countless numbers of those views develop throughout the novel. Such views come from the Confederates own General Lee and General Longstreet, and the Unions own Colonel Chamberlain and soldiers from both sides. From those depicted
Strange things began to happen the next couple days. First, Joey was in the living room of Grandma’s house making a jig saw puzzle. He heard the sound of a horses hooves walking slowly on the street then the sound stopped in front of the house and heard someone put something in Grandma’s mail box. Joey heard the horse walk away and a little while later Grandma’s mailbox blew up. Next, Ms. Wilcox’s outhouse was destroyed by a cherry bomb. Then, a dead mouse was found floating in the bottle of milk that was delivered to the front
Warriors Don 't Cry is a memoir written by Melba Pattillo Beals. It is about the author herself as a young girl named Melba, who grew up in a society of segregation. Nine students, including Beals, have the chance to integrate a white school called Central High. Mobs of white people were against it and would harass them and even try to kill them. Three elements used in this memoir are first point of view, character and plot. Furthermore, Warriors Don 't Cry has the theme of courage.
In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the interconnection of people and events, that might ordinarily be viewed as disconnected or unrelated, is implicitly presented in the characters section. Dual roles are implemented by a playwright that has one actor portraying the roles of two or more characters, with or without thematic intentions. The use of “dual roles” in several scenes of this play can be viewed as a demonstration of Kushner’s effort in maintaining the interconnectedness between characters, communities (i.e. queer, heterosexual, AIDS and political communities) and events to which they are relative. This essay will argue that Kushner’s use of dual role’s effectively interconnects characters, events and their communities that may be seen as usually unrelated. Analysis of four specific characters, Antarctica, Oceania, Australia and Europa, in Act Five, Scene Five of “Perestroika”, will demonstrate the connection of each Act Five, Scene Five character, to the actors main character based on the implicit evidence presented in the actors “primary” and “secondary” roles, the scenes dialogue and the character interactions. As one will see, by implementing dual roles, Kushner is able to expand or preserve the concept of a major character while the actor portrays another character, keeping the audience from having to completely renegotiate their knowledge between what they physically see of new characters and actually use the new context to view triumphs and struggles for a major character.
Tony Kushner, in his play Angels in America, explores a multitude of issues pertaining to modern American society including, but not limited to, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Through his diverse character selection, he is able to compare and contrast the many varied experiences that Americans might face today. Through it all, the characters’ lives are all linked together through a common thread: progress, both personal and public. Kushner offers insight on this topic by allowing his characters to discuss what it means to make progress and allowing them to change in their own ways. Careful observation of certain patterns reveals that, in the scope of the play, progress is cyclical in that it follows a sequential process of rootlessness, desire, and sacrifice, which repeats itself.
The nation and people were separated and each man fought for what they believed to be right for them. Whether the men sided with the north or south it really did not matter. Whether they believed slavery should be abolished or not, it was not too prevalent in this book. Some men fought for themselves, for their families, to protect their land, and some because it was the morally right and loyal thing to do. Whatever reasons the soldiers decided to fight that day and days subsequently, I am sure they could not have dreamed of the legacy that their heroism and bravery that The Battle of Gettysburg has left in American History. With over 50,000 casualties occurred that occurred over three days of aggressive fighting, the battle was vital turning point in the civil war.
Kushner, Tony. "Angels in America." By Tony Kushner Book (9781854591562). 1993. Web. 01 Mar. 2012. .
Author Steven Seidman writes that “it is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a significant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America “(38). Those that are homosexual tends to tell lies and play deceitful silly games just to appease family, coworkers and a few dear old friends. They feed into the prejudices and fears about homosexuality. In Angels in America, many of the characters are homosexual, and the truth about their sexual preferences comes out. Kushner shows us the difficult struggle that often precedes a gay person’s acceptance of her or his identity, and the ways in which one’s ability to enact this identity is dependent on the acceptance of others.
On May 4, 2017, the Department of Theatre and Speech at the City College of New York held their annual, "One Act Play Festival," in room 310 at the Compton-Goethals Hall. One play stood out from the others during this festival. That play was "Dos Corazones". This play was directed by Laixsa Mercado.
In 1973, An American Family, a PBS series, featured one of the family’s sons revealing his homosexuality. In 1977, the television show Soap costarred Billy Crystal as an openly gay man. In the 1980s, it became trendy to feature gay and lesbian characters in ensemble casts. If you watch reruns, you can always find the token gay, that is, the really flaming homo or the butch lesbian gym teacher. The motion picture Mannequin, starring Andrew McCarthy and Kim Catrall, featured Meshach Taylor as Hollywood, an eccentric, finger-snapping homosexual.
Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America, comments on a number of social issues of its time; ranging from political to societal. Additionally, it incorporates many concepts discussed in the Modern Condition courses. Thinkers such as Nietzsche, Borges, and DeBeauvoir are specifically represented in the play through the characters presented. Kushner uses his characters to convey the ideas of these thinkers in the context of the culture the play takes place in.