Category: Fall 2025

Roy Cohns confrontation with his doctor in Act 1 is a striking example of how Tony Kushner explores power and identity. When Roy insists that [he] “is not a homosexual.” But instead a “heterosexual man… who fucks around with guys” he’s stating that for him, and I would argue, a lot of white men in power, labels like “gay” or “homosexual” aren’t about reclaiming personal truth; they are about status. As he tells his doctor, “labels tell you one thing and one thing only; where does the individual so identified fit in the food chain” (pg 46.)

In this scene, Tony Kushner dramatized the consequences of politics fed by denial and self-preservation. – and Delusion. Roy Cohn’s insistence that “what I am is defined entirely by who I am”  turns identity, for him, into a performance of dominance where he is always top dog. While reading this passage, I began to consider identity not in terms of “who we are” but “who gets to define us.”

That idea, that identity is tied to hierarchy, gets to the heart of Roy’s worldview. He’s obsessed with power, and constantly measures his worth through access to connections and influence. “I can pick up this phone, punch fifteen numbers…” being gay, in his mind, isn’t about who he desires, but about whether he’s part of a “powerless” group. This is an important aspect to consider, that the denial of a label could be not just a political maneuver, but linked to clout as a form of political currency. Since Roy Cohn sees all his relationships as transactional, of course he would capitalize on this.

The irony of this, is that Roy’s attempts to weaponize identity and labels falls short of his moral and physical decay. (Well, he’s probably always been morally decayed.) His denial of his AID’s diagnosis as a “homosexual disease” runs counterpoint to his understanding and admittance that he knows how he contracted it. His rebranding of “liver cancer” and the idea that “powerful men don’t get AIDS” mirror the real world and broader social denial that allowed the AIDS crisis to worsen under the Reagan administration.

In Roy Cohn’s America, he has liver cancer, and isn’t a homosexual. But Tony Kushner reminds us that he’s dying of AIDS, and having sex with men. Not only that, but the body itself always calls the bluff.

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is a story which manages to weave two opposites together in a number of ways. For one, the combination of humor, something so light, against the tragic reality of the AIDS crisis and the suffering in the character’s lives. Combining the two makes a much more enjoyable experience, even if it does occasionally tear your heart out, as all good things eventually do.

In particular, the first scene between Harper and Prior is where this begins in ernest. With one dreaming and one on a drug trip, both trying to cope with their lives. Their circumstances in life are anything but comedic. However, the way they speak to each other, for a moment, leaves behind their misery.

They aren’t anything alike from what they know in the instance when they first meet, but it becomes clearer that they aren’t as different as they could be, even turning to joke about it; Harper: It’s terrible. Mormons aren’t supposed to be addicted to anything. I’m a Mormon. / Prior: I’m a homosexual. / Harper: Oh! In my church, we don’t believe in homosexuals. / Prior: In my church, we don’t believe in mormons.” (Kushner, 32) Their way of handling each other is met with something much lighter than what might be expected from two people in seemingly opposing paths of life, but they don’t seem to have any issue at this moment.

They exist as two separate things, yet when looked at together, their struggles and joys merge into something that is easier to understand and see; a combination of their tragedy and comedy.

In Act III Scene 4 of Perestroika, Joe expresses opinions rooted in his Mormon beliefs which contradict Louis’ view on America. Not only is this ironic because of the Mormon church’s view of homosexuality as a sin, it also presents warmth than expected toward Joe’s background within the church, specifically because the church’s views seem optimistic when contrasting Louis’ pessimistic, hopeless view of America. On page 202, Joe asks Louis, “Do you know why you find the world so unsatisfying?” and answers this question himself, saying “you never face the sorrow of the world, it’s bitterness,” and continues, “You have to accept that we’re not here to make the entire earth into a heaven, you have to accept we can’t. And accept as rightfully yours the happiness that comes your way” (203). Louis, rightfully, points out that these ideas are distinctly republican and Mormon. However, the most interesting that Kushner does in this scene is create space for these republican, Mormon ideas to contribute toward Joe’s acceptance of his own identity. Louis’ pessimistic view of America, while understandable, may actually be less helpful to self-acceptance than Joe’s ideas rooted in his Mormon upbringing which allow him to accept the imperfections of the world. Ironically, this means that some aspects of Joe’s Mormon beliefs make him more willing to accept his relationship to Louis. Whereas Louis, who relies almost entirely on his own internalized ideas about acceptance, America, and optimism, struggles more to accept his newfound distance from Prior and can hardly fathom that all of Joe’s characteristics as a gay, Mormon, republican can exist at once. Through this scene, Kushner calls into question Louis’ more stereotypical beliefs about what it means to be a queer man to suggest that there is not necessarily one way to come into or express one’s identity. Joe’s identity as a gay man is complex, but his willingness to except that some things do not have inherent explanations, a trait taken directly from his Mormon upbringing, gives him a leg up in understanding his place in the world over Louis’ panicked philosophical uncertainty.

Tony Kushner’s Angels in America explores the tension between despair and transformation in a world collapsing under the weight of illness, politics, and fear. Taken place at the height of conservative revolution in America’s politics and culture under Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the irony is that, conservatism is to resist changes, and preserved traditional ideas and values, but Angels in America also taught us that changes is inevitable. Through a variety of characters who aren’t entirely “good” or entirely “bad”: a drug-addict wife, a gay man dying of AIDS, a closeted Mormon lawyer, etc., who struggle to find meaning amid chaos. The “so what?” of Kushner’s vision is that the “human thing” is our resilience, not about overcoming suffering, but about learning to live through it and finding meaning within that. For however painful, imperfect, or incomplete someone is, change is both inevitable and necessary for survival. What matters is really the willingness to confront loss and uncertainty rather than retreat from them.
What’s striking about Angels in America is that even characters who seem “liberal,” people we tend to think aren’t afraid of changes, like Louis and Prior, are also deeply afraid of change. Prior, when facing death, admits that “even drag is a drag now,” expressing exhaustion and fear in the face of his own change. And Louis, overwhelmed by his partner’s illness, abandons him rather than confront mortality and change directly. On the other hand, characters who initially resist change, like Joe Pitt, the closeted Mormon lawyer, eventually accept truths about himself that he can no longer suppress. And Harper, too, evolves from a frightened, drug-dependent woman into someone who ultimately embraces motion and possibility, saying “The world only spins forward.”
Because change is inevitable, Kushner shows it as one of humanity’s greatest powers of survival. In the motif of migration, we see changes as the unstoppable force of human movement which brought Prior’s family to America as well as Belize’s slave ancestors and Louis’s immigrant ones, and even carried the Mormons across the continent to Utah. All embody an inerasable drive toward progress and transformation. Change, Kushner suggests, is not only inevitable but the essence of human history.
One dialouge that resonates with me the most that captures this idea, was when Harper talks to her Mormon Mother:
“Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?
Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it’s not very nice.
God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can’t even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It’s up to you to do the stitching.
Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.
Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.
Harper: That’s how people change.”
Change is painful. Change is violent and excruciating, yet necessary. Through pain, through chaos, through persistence, the fragile hope of Angels in America is that the world, and the people within it, must keep moving forward.

As I was reading this play, there was a theme that really stuck out to me: Power.  Both Roy and Prior are suffering from the same disease, yet the two could not be more different with the way they interpret power and the way they treat others. Power is used as a contrast between Roy and Prior, showing how the two use their power to shape their destiny and affect the world around them.

In Part 1, Act 1, Scene 9, we see Roy in a doctor’s office receiving his diagnosis with HIV, and as Roy grapples with this information, he also intimidates Henry because he is so insulted by the implication of his sexuality. He even outright dares Henry to say that he is a homosexual, which he never does because Roy said that he would sue into oblivion. In Part 1, Act 3, Scene 5, Roy lectures Joe about how he was the one who effectively killed Ethel Rosenberg because he sees life as a ‘dog eat dog’ world where one must “make the law or [be] subject to it” (Kushner 114). He also says in this scene to Joe that there isn’t anything wrong with him, contradicting what he said before regarding his ‘liver cancer’. To me it seems clear that Roy Cohn is a man obsessed with control and blinded by rage and denial that he ends up dying, sad and alone, all the while declaring victory.

In contrast, Prior freely declares that he is a gay man, for example in Part 1, Act 3,  Scene 7, and also admits that he is dying. By embracing his truth, he centers his power in courage and endurance, ignoring what the Angel tells him saying that he can’t just stop and go backwards, we must keep moving and we must make progress.

To summate, power is a lens through which we can view the play and a tool that Kushner uses to show that true power is rooted in hope and resilience, not in anger and hatred.

In Angels in America, Tony Kushner uses the stillness of angels to show that change is what keeps humans alive. This becomes very clear in the scene where Prior meets the Angel. The Angel arrives in a huge dramatic moment and we expect something inspiring. Instead, she tells Prior that humans need to stop changing at all. She orders, “Stop moving!” and says that Heaven is breaking down because people keep doing new things like moving, inventing, loving and changing who they are. To the Angels, change seems dangerous. The Angel even talks about humans being “infected” with change like it’s some kind of disease.

Kushner makes it obvious that the Angel is wrong. Heaven is frozen in place and as a result, is falling apart, but humans keep moving. Even though Prior is scared and confused, he doesn’t give up. He questions the Angel and refuses to stop living his life. His reaction shows that change, even when it’s painful, is part of being human. People grow up, fall in love and fight for their lives. If we stop changing, we stop surviving.

By showing the Angels stuck in the past and humans move towards the future, Kushner proves that change is a necessity. Staying the same is what actually messes with people. For the queer characters in the play, movement and change are more than just ideas. So even in a world full of sickness and fear, Kushner says that the only way forward is to keep going.

 

Scene one of act two highlights the differences between Prior and Louis in the traumatic context of the worsening of Prior’s condition. Their reactions to an episode of poor health are indicative of their personalities and perspectives on Prior’s condition. Prior is clearly desperate and pleading with Louis for help and support when he’s in his moment of need on page 49 and 50. Louis responds to this by immediately leaving the room and announcing that he’s going to call someone else to deal with it. This dichotomy is clearly drawn and illustrates the incompatibility of Prior and Louis in their current states. Louis’s aversion to any sort of trouble or challenge or hardship is incredibly hard on Prior as he grows increasingly conscious of the possibility of Louis leaving him at the hospital as he explicitly stated on page 50. The scene ends with Prior unconscious and Louis quietly saying, “…I can’t I can’t I can’t,” (50). As if to verbalize what the readers knew from their prior conversations about Louis “walking out” on their relationship: his inability to cope with the impending death of his partner (40).

Within the differences highlighted in this scene, there are a few similarities. Both Louis’s and Prior’s reactions to this apparent manifestation of Prior’s condition are rooted in fear. Louis fears the death of his partner. He experiences denial earlier in the play on page 39, but when faced with symptoms correlating with worsening condition, Louis can no longer ignore the fact that his partner is dying. This causes him to be hysterical and likely feel incapable of taking care of him, thus calling the ambulance to take Prior somewhere where he can be better taken care of. Prior’s fear is very complex. He is afraid of dying, of course, but he is also afraid of being abandoned by the person that he loves. If he was dying beside an unquestionably supportive partner who took care of him and didn’t break down and “get too upset” at the mention of a development in Prior’s condition, Prior would potentially be less averse to being hospitalized (39). The knowledge that Louis could leave Prior at the hospital brings that fear of abandonment together with any minute apprehension surrounding the hospital, resulting in Prior’s desire to stay in their home with Louis for as long as possible.

 

In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the character Roy Cohn both in the book and in real life show us the consequences (real or metaphoric) of having internalized homophobia installed into gay people and how organized religion can play into that. Though for some people, like the character Joe, being raised Mormon meant being a “failure” was never an option which he exclaims when opening up to Roy, “the failure to measure up hits people very hard. From such a strong desire to be good they feel very good from farness when they fail” (Kushner 56). Joe is slowly failing at passing for straight as he has confrontations such as Louis calling him a gay republican which insults him for being assumed as gay. However slowly the truth uncovers with different stereotypes of gay men align with Joe (such as going on walks at night, is subservient to Roy and married Harper as a way to pass and to be her “savior”).

For Roy, his internalized homophobia has not only caused him to hate himself but all gay people. He has tried to separate himself as much as possible to queerness as physically possible to saying he’s a just a person who likes having sex with men and isn’t actually gay to proposing that gay people be banned from working in the government. He has separated himself so much from queerness that when he’s even diagnosed with AIDS he lies because of the association of it with gay men, “…AIDS is what homosexuals have, I have liver cancer” (Kushner  47). For Roy even being grouped with gay people was a problem because of his beliefs and his thoughts of himself.

Yet, why does this matter? Tying back to religion, the plays main plot focuses on the character Prior being chosen by the angel as the prophet when dying from AIDS. However, Roy is also dying from AIDS so why not him? Roy was not chosen because of how his self-hatred has been perpetrated onto everyone around him and that him being closeted isn’t the way god made him to be. The message of Angels of America exclaims the point that organized religion may want you to believe that your queerness is wrong, shameful, or a failure but the higher being that Roy Cohn gay did it for a reason. Angels in America tells us that truly our feelings are natural and not something to shove down or to turn into hatred. That is why Prior is chosen over Roy. Prior has accepted his identity and still has kept his humanity compared to Roy who has lost his own humanity and the humanity in others.

The tie to Mormonism which is a religion with a cult like following is an intentional choice Kushner made. Through the lens of Mormonism we see how internalized homophobia effects those who may be queer within the Latter Day Saints Church. Joe is a true victim in how he felt he had to hide his identity because of his religion and overcompensated to the point where he genuinely thought that he wasn’t gay for a time. However, unlike Roy we see the progression throughout the play of Roy accepting his queerness. Especially when he realizes and confesses his love for another man, Louis. The juxtaposition of these characters helps the audience broaden their view of what internalized homophobia is, how it can happen to people, and the different ways people deal with it. Additionally with religion circling the play helping us understand this point from different religious beliefs.