Class Blog

In Angels in America, Harper’s addiction to Valium in order to experience her hallucinations is representative of her desire to escape the truth; however, imagination is finite, and no matter how hard she tries, the truth almost always seems to reveal itself.

In the interaction between Harper and Prior within Harper’s hallucination and Prior’s dream within Act 1 Scene 7, Harper comes to the depressing realization that even the construction of her hallucinations has limitations and that they’re “really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth” (Kushner, 33). This underscores the way in which Harper’s hallucinations may appear to be boundless, when in reality, her imagination can only extend so far. Harper describes this as a “depressing hallucination” (Kushner, 33) because that means that even her Valium won’t allow her to run from the truth and the reality that her marriage will never be what she wants it to be, because it was constructed around the repression of Joe’s true identity as a gay man.

It’s ironic that Harper enters the cyclical nature of her hallucinations as a means to escape from the truth, when it’s one of her hallucinations that forces her to confront her reality and the truth that her “husband’s a homo” (Kushner, 33), as unveiled by Prior. Although this truth was characterized within the play as the “[t]hreshold of revelation” (Kushner, 34), in some ways it seems as if Harper was always aware of Joe’s homosexuality, which contributed to her continual usage of popping Valium pills, because that meant that she did not have to confront this reality.

Harper has such a strong desire to escape the truth that Joe is gay, because she confesses that she can “make up anything but I can’t dream that away” (Kushner, 52), where “that” is referring to the love that she has for Joe. In confronting the truth, Harper would have to come to terms with the fact that the love that she has for Joe is not reciprocated, where her hallucinations don’t even have the power to transform or erase the existence of this love that she has for him.

The complexity of personality, morals, and relationships has been frequently highlighted throughout the play thus far. It has brought unlikely pairs together through friendship, romantic relationships, or simple tolerance, displayed contradictions between religious beliefs and the realities of life, and has skewed the perceptions of common labels. I believe that one of Angels in America‘s main goals is to portray the idea of similarities among differences and differences among similarities in order to combat the feeling of “otherness” that was so strong during this time period and even in today’s current social and political climate. 

One way Kushner achieves this is through the romantic pairing of Joe and Louis. In the last scene of act 3 of Perestroika during a conversation between the two where Louis brings up that Joe is conservative, again, Joe says “You’re obsessed, you know that? If people like you didn’t have president Reagan to demonize, where would you be?

Louis: If he didn’t have people like me to demonize where would he be?[…]

Joe: I’m not your enemy . Louis.

Louis: I never said you were my-

Joe: Fundamentally, we want the same thing. (203-204)”

In this,  the emphasis on difference, between political stances, and similarity, in their attraction to one another and recently leaving a long term relationship (yet still for different reasons), is clearly stated. I think this scene, and relationship, is important in showing us how crucial it is to look further than surface level differences in order to truly know people and form connections. On the outside, Joe: a “straight”, Mormon, conservative and Louis: an openly gay, Jewish, democrat would not seem to be likely friends, let alone each other’s romantic interests. However, though these issues still do come up at times, they were able to find and bond over their similarities in a more meaningful way.

This theme was so important during the AIDS/HIV epidemic because too many years were wasted and lives were lost because of this idea of “otherness”. With the common perception that the disease was only affecting queer people, or “those people”, there was unfortunately far too little action done to help stop the spread and combat the symptoms. There was so much emphasis put on the differences that the world seemed to forget that these were their friends, family, neighbors, doctors, teachers, servers, and so on. This relates to how Covid, upcoming elections, and other social issues have divided people in the present. However, through this play, we see the potential of relationships among what would seem to be polar opposites, which I believe is a key takeaway that has been repeated many times so far.

In the play Angels in America by Tony Kushner, there are many themes on display. One of these themes is that the past is not dead. One tool that the play uses to implement this is the idea of ghosts. One example of this was the portrayal of Ethel Rosenberg, who was put to death after a trial that was prosecuted by Roy Cohn, who comes back to haunt him when he is close to death. In an almost contradictory manor however, She doesn’t seem overtly hostile to Cohn, as she even calls an ambulance on his behalf to take him to the hospital (Kushner, 117-116), as it can be argues that Cohn is directly responsible for her death. Another instance of ghosts in the play are the “Prior Priors”. During parts of the play, Prior is visited by two versions of himself who have had their own lives before him. They visit Prior multiple times in the play, not always to interact with Prior, but in ways to help guide him, especially when the Angel appears (Kushner, 118) when they arrive before the Angel and talk with Prior. This shows us yet another instance of ghosts guiding a character along in the narrative. These examples of ghosts in the play highlight that while the past is the past, it is most certainly not dead, as it continues to live on in the form of memories and impacts. This is a particularly telling theme in the context of the AIDS epidemic, where there are many many ghosts, whose lives are not erased by their deaths, but live on in the lives of the people who knew them.

 

Louis’s contradictory attitude about sex reflects the dilemma of sex or AIDS that facing by the queer community at that time.

In Act 1 Scene 4, after Louis visited Prior in the hospital, he went to the park and hooked up with another man. In the beginning, the man didn’t want to use the “rubber”, but Louis consisted that he wouldn’t have sex without the “rubber”. At this point, as a gay man who just saw his boyfriend suffering a lot from AIDS, Louis was really terrified by AIDS and can give up anything, either boyfriend or sex, to get rid of AIDS. However, when the condom broke, it was Louis who wanted to keep going without the rubber but the man who chose to leave. So, what made Louis change in such a short time? When they have sex, Louis was not a gay man who has a sick boyfriend anymore, he was just a man who wants to be happy at this moment. His fear of AIDS went away just like the shame of having sex in a public place. Louis’s words “Infect me. I don’t care. I don’t care” are also the voice of a group of other gay men like him at that time. For them, life just becomes another thing, like family, like social status, that they need to sacrifice to be themselves.

Having sex and taking the risk of AID or yielding to AIDS and saying no to sex is a hard choice to make for not only Louis and this man but the whole queer community at that time. The author, by letting the rubber brock, shows how even the thought of AIDS can make gay people change their behavior and how greatly AIDS affects queer people. Louis and that man’s vacillation also reflects other queer people’s vacillation. Rather than being clear about what they exactly want to do toward AIDS, there is also a group of people that are still being shocked by AIDS, can’t get used to it, and don’t know what to do.

Louis has an insight into AIDS that no other character in Angels in America can grasp; he lives through the symptoms and trauma of AIDS without directly being sick, as he sees the way his boyfriend declines from the illness. Louis is a representation of the trauma and fear that uninfected gay men lived through during the AIDS epidemic.  

After Louis and Prior fight about calling an ambulance as Prior is having explosive diarrhea, Louis seeks out a hookup with a stranger in a park. This is one of the first times that Prior’s horrific symptoms are shown on screen, and Louis is stressed and scared by them, screaming at Prior and breaking down when Prior faints. During this encounter, the condom breaks: “MAN: I think it must’ve… It broke, or slipped off, you didn’t put it on right, or—You want me to keep going? / Pull out? Should I– / LOUIS: Keep going. / Infect me. / I don’t care. / I don’t care” (Kushner, 60). Louis, clearly in a mindset of distress, implies he wants the stranger to have sex with him without a condom. 

Louis risks getting AIDS when he cheats on Prior. Though his mind is not fully clear, his words reveal what he thinks about AIDS, especially in relation to Prior. He does not care if he gets AIDS, as he knows that if he does, at least he will die with Prior. Louis is terrified of the knowledge that he will lose his boyfriend soon, and this hookup pushes to the point of being a sort of self-harm. He would rather suffer with Prior than suffer without him. 

Louis is the gay men mourning for their lost brothers, not knowing how to cope with the trauma and fear of the AIDS epidemic. Many of these men did not have a healthy, safe, or secure outlet, instead hiding internally or lashing out in hope to get some sense of comfort. Many, like Louis, may have turned to unsafe sex when they were distressed. They would rather have had their names on a quilt than be haunted by the deaths of their friends, families, and lovers. 

In Tony Kushner’s play Angels of America, the character Roy Cohn depicts a complicated version of masculinity, that he exhibits through brash dialogue and a big ego, but he says certain sexual things that make it clear that he is a part of the gay scene he has so much hatred for. In Act 1. Scene 2 when Roy says “I wish I was an octopus, a fucking octopus. Eight loving arms and all those suckers…” (Kushner 11). The underlying sexual tone is evident with words like “loving”  and “sucking” which are sensual words Kushner uses to imply the hidden gay life that Roy lives. Despite this Roy relentlessly tries to distance himself from any queerness that could be associated with him by enforcing the masculine elements of himself. After being told he has AIDS Roy defends himself by claiming that he is, “a heterosexual man…who fucks around with guys” (Kushner 47). Since Roy presents himself as a straight man but he’s actually a closeted gay man the internalized homophobia and the hatred that he has of himself has manifested into a persecution of people he thinks are wrong.

One example of this is his part in the death of Ethel Rosenberg. In Act. 1 Scene 5 Roy proudly exclaims, “I pleaded till I wept to put her in that chair…Why? Because I fucking hate traitors” (Kushner 113). Roy was so adamant that Ethel dies because she represents a part of himself that he hates. Throughout Angels in America Roy is a traitor to his own masculine values and he expels that hatred to anyone who he deems as in the category of people who also go against his values this is shown as he calls other gay men in the play “sissy” or “faggot.” This hatred persists as he endures AIDS and up until his demise.

Angels in America uses the split-screen technique to illustrate how Americans have created intense political divides that pit our issues against one another when in reality we all share the same struggles. In scene 7 of Millenium Approaches, Prior and Harper overlap in one another’s dream/hallucination. Both of them commiserate about the issues they are facing — Prior gawks at himself as a young man left alone to die of AIDS, all dolled up in full drag; Harper grovels over being isolated by her emotional problems in a Valium-induced haze. When they dive into conversation with one another, Harper tells Prior that her Mormon church doesn’t believe in homosexuals and Prior retorts that his ‘church’ (the gay community) doesn’t believe in Mormons. Harper goes on to say, “Imagination can’t create anything new, can it? It only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions […] So when we think we’ve escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives, it’s really only the same old ordinaries and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. Nothing unknown is knowable. Don’t you think it’s depressing?” (Kushner 33). Harper is describing a conundrum that impacts us all — that our struggles that present as uniquely painful every time they appear in our lives are actually just recycled core issues we have already experienced, to which Prior can wholeheartedly relate. In tandem with their interaction about Mormons and queer people holding the same valence of beliefs about the other group, this notion of everyone’s problems repeating and reworking under a false sense of novelty implies that the two of them are actually more similar than different.

The split-screen design when these two characters address their own unique issues simultaneously serves to exemplify a general disconnect in American society at large. Prior, a gay man, has a personal battle with AIDS and speaks to the AIDS epidemic in America as a whole. Harper, a Mormon, is battling addiction amongst other psychiatric issues, and speaks to a greater problem of internalized religious pressures and their impacts on mental health. They seem strikingly different and inherently opposed to one another, as their ascribed social groups are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Ultimately, both are fighting illness, trying to uphold their personal values, and sharing a profound sense of loneliness. This contrast is illuminated by the split-screen technique, as it places their independent issues side-by-side to illustrate that they are really similar in nature. Further, greater societal dilemmas mutually underscore Prior and Harper’s issues, as per their conversation about how misery is just a perpetual rearrangement of core problems (loneliness, disease, ostracization, etc.). Harper positing that “nothing unknown is knowable” in reference to her own depression, which Prior empathically confirms applies to his life as well, demonstrates a universal understanding that despite our opposing views, we are all bound to cyclical suffering. By shedding light on these two opposite-coded characters’ comparable struggles, Angels in America addresses how the pervasive “othering” by organized social groups prevents us from addressing the root of our problems, which can be mutually understood when the veil of politicization is lifted. 

Kushner uses Roy Cohn as a symbol throughout Angels in America to show how power, oppression, and disease are inherently connected. This connection is most obviously portrayed in Act I, Scene 9 in which Roy Cohn denies both being a homosexual and having AIDs when diagnosed by his doctor, despite both of these being true. In this scene, Kusher is drawing attention to the privilege that Roy has by having an immense amount of power. Since Cohn is a wealthy and successful white man, he has the power to be gay without facing any oppression. This can be seen in his statement “Say: ‘Roy Cohn, you are a homosexual.’… And I will proceed, systematically, to destroy your reputation and your practice, and your career in New York State, Henry. Which you know I can do (45). With this statement, it can be seen that Roy’s immense power not only protects him from being exposed and therefore oppressed by the homophobic system that exists in the united states, but it also protects him from even accepting it himself. This line also reveals Roy’s understanding of how easily this power can be taken away from him. Cohn’s greatest fear through this conversation is not that he is dying but that being labeled as a homosexual will change his status in society. He says “Like all labels, they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain, in the pecking order? Not ideology, or sexual taste but something much simpler: clout.” By saying this, It is clear that Roy is not only revealing a deeply internalized hatred for his identity as a homosexual man but further, a clear understanding that being labeled as a homosexual will instantly lessen his power as a highly respected lawyer. 

Kushner further uses Roy as a symbol to show the inevitable loss of social status that comes with disease and death. While Roy uses his privilege and power to avoid being oppressed, it is evident that by having AIDS, he will ultimately lose this power to control how he is perceived by the public when he dies. This fear of losing control over how he is perceived can be seen in Roy’s hallucinations of the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. This fear of loss of power is clear when Roy says “I’m immortal. Ethel….I have forced my way into history. I ain’t ever gonna die.” To which she responds “History is about to crack wide open. Millennium approaches.” Roy’s denial of dying resembles the same denial of being a homosexual and having aids that he conveyed in his conversation with his doctor. It can be seen that Ethel’s appearance in Roy’s hallucination resembles this fear of death since Roy was responsible for her death and her true identity as a communist spy being exposed. By saying that “history is about to crack wide open,” Ethel expresses what Roy is too scared to admit—that once he dies, his history—his true identity—will be exposed and he will have no power over how he is perceived anymore. 

Kushner uses Harper’s character to illustrate how repressing sexual identity and conforming to a societal or religious expectation of identity is harmful not only to oneself, but to ones partners and family as well. Additionally, this plays into the larger theme of the play which is to acknowledge and attend to ones own pain to empathize with others diverse experiences of pain; each character is uniquely lonely, but they share in common the consequences of a society which stigmatizes gayness and ignores the AIDS crisis.

Kushner introduces the relationship between Harper and Joe from an objective perspective, which depicts Harper’s abuse of Valium and suggests her mental health is harming their marriage. Joe infantilizes his wife and denies her requests for affection and love, as seen in the language he uses to address her: “hey buddy”, along with deciding when they will share an (extremely unerotic) moment of affection: “buddy kiss”. Joe uses shaming tactics to essentially gaslight Harper into believing her problems are separate from their relationship, or that her “emotional problems” impede any potential attraction to her. This causes Harper to be stuck in a cycle of self-loathing in which she turns again to Valium to escape. However, there are moments which Harper interrupts this cycle to defend herself and express her autonomy; “if I do have emotional problems it’s from living with you” (Act I Scene 5). Here it is made clear that Harper does not assume responsibility entirely for her mental health or addiction, nor does she blame it on her upbringing, a tactic Joe uses later on. 

It is made clear that Joe is projecting the pain and shame he carries around onto his wife, who is no longer accepting of this dynamic. During her confrontation with Joe addressing his sexuality, Harper says, “Yes I’m the enemy. That’s easy” (Act I Scene 8), showing that she is recipient of Joe’s frustration, but she knows that she doesn’t deserve it either. 

There are multiple forces acting on Joe which cause him to repress his sexuality, the main being his following of Mormonism. Kushner makes clear the complex dynamic of religion and how it is not as simple as denouncing it (which we might want Harper to do) or ignoring its teachings to free oneself from their harm. After inadvertently confessing to be homosexual, Joe gives a final attempt at blaming Harper for his own shame: “You want to destroy me, but I am not going to let you do that” (Act I Scene 8). Joe now represents Harper directly as the guilt and shame he feels about his sexuality; both due to his lack of attraction to her and her knowledge of this shared “secret”. He believes that accepting gayness will destroy him, but repressing it further will only harm his marriage and Harper’s potential for happiness. 

In Angels in America, Tony Kushner uses the device of split stage scenes to equalize and humanize his characters. This ultimately serves to force the audience to care about the AIDS epidemic more viscerally.

Not every audience member will be able to sympathize with every character in this story, but presumably they can with at least a few of them. Even though not every character is universally palatable, the play as a whole still acts as an emotional punch to the viewer, urging action to aid in the fight against AIDS. Part of the reason this is possible is through these split stage moments. The one discussed in class today, between Prior and Harper, is a perfect example.

Both of them unpack their pain in this scene. For Prior, his pain is partly his loneliness and hurt that Louis has left him in this moment of crisis and partly because he is being confronted with his own impending death. In one word, he feels “robbed,” both of his life and his love (31).  Harper’s pain also stems from her loneliness. Her husband leaves her alone frequently and does not make her feel cared for even when he is around. While Prior’s pain is hard for the average person to relate to, Harper’s is much more accessible. Many people have felt the loneliness of incompatibility, even if they are not so fundamentally incompatible as Harper and Joe.

Because these two characters appear in this scene together, a comparison is intentionally drawn. The pain of each is better understood through the other. For a moment they are equalized, and being able to empathize with either character brings about the capacity to empathize with both. However, by the end of the scene, a distinction is drawn.

Harper makes a point to say “I can’t expect someone who’s really sick to entertain me” (33). The word “really” is what jumps out here. Harper’s monologues seem to dominate the latter half of this scene, so her pain becomes especially potent and accessible to the viewer. When she points out that, despite her depth of pain, Prior has far more reason to despair, it allows all her words about depression to relate to Prior’s emotions, giving the audience a means with which to grasp the horrific experience that Prior, and millions of other gay men, went through with AIDS.

I think queer audiences of Angels in America understand the pain quite fine without these scenes, but as a piece of activist literature, the task of convincing straight audiences to care is one to be considered.