Marvin Carson's Angels In America

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In this two-part piece, Angels in America tells the story of a number of characters living in New York City in the 80’s. The play predominantly focuses the life and journey of a young man named Prior Walter, who at the beginning of the play reveals to his lover, Louis (Lou) Ironson, that he has Legionnaire's disease due to AIDS. An overwhelmed Lou summarily abandons Prior and falls for Joe Pitt, a closeted homosexual who works as a clerk at the federal courthouse. Joe, a Mormon, struggles with his relationships with Louis; with his anxious and delusional addict of a wife Harper; and with Roy Cohn, the power broker who wants Joe to move to Washington to be his eyes and ears within the Reagan administration. Cohn is also in the closet and battling AIDS; his nurse, Belize, is close friends with Prior and ex-ex drag queen. The play predominantly focuses on the vilification and the stigma of the AIDS epidemic as well as the gay community in the 80’s. In addition to other concepts of love, life, and death, infidelity, heaven, and hell. Watching over all these twisted and tangled relationships is the Angel, who has a message for humanity and who chooses Prior to being the prophet who will deliver it. This contemporary view will look at Marvin Carson's theory of ‘haunting’ in the theatre by looking at the theatrical forms and use of technology. …show more content…

Faust. The Morality aspect of Angels lies in the dilemmas Prior and Roy deal with throughout both acts alongside the interactions of Prior with the Angel of America. This includes their reactions to the initial diagnosis as well as their feelings, interactions and reactions to their illness, the people around them and their reluctance. An example of this can be seen during the scene in which Roy argues with his doctor about his condition and ends his monologue with the phrase

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