<\/p>\n
In the America of the 80\u2019s, reality was harsh, and the different communities didn\u2019t communicate. They preferred to stay in their own bubbles and, when they did leave their bubbles, criticism took place. There was little empathy or collective effort. The diversity was something negative, resulting in more isolation. \u201cAngels in America\u201d is a play that, through characters\u2019 dreams and hallucinations, seek to inspire its viewers and readers to realize that differences can actually be mutually dependent, that is, communities can learn with each other, depend on each other and in fact understand that there are many similarities between them.<\/p>\n
Scene 7 in Act 1, between Prior and Harper, is a perfect example of this important endeavor. The two characters represent two members of the gay and the Mormon community, respectively. It\u2019s very unlikely that these characters would meet and actually have such a deep conversation in real life. Through Prior\u2019s dream and Harper\u2019s hallucination, the characters talk and discover their similarities. However, Harper says that what they are experiencing is different from usual, because \u201c… the mind, which is where hallucinations come from, shouldn\u2019t be able to make up anything that wasn\u2019t there to start with, that didn\u2019t enter it from experience, from the real world. (p. 32). Later, she says that \u201c(…) when we think we\u2019ve escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfulness of our lives, it\u2019s really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth\u201d (p. 33).<\/p>\n
What is Harper trying to say is that human beings are trapped in their own bubbles even when they are dreaming or hallucinating. Dreams are a way of preparing a person for her\/his\/their own life, that is, imagination is limited, as Prior said. What would be the solution then, if both the real and the oneiric worlds don\u2019t burst the communities\u2019 bubbles? I think \u201cAngels in America\u201d is a play that talks about the power of art and how it can lead to a \u201cthreshold of revelation\u201d. (page 33) Art has no limits and make distinct characters be empathetic towards each other. Art produces \u201ca blue streak of recognition\u201d (page 34). \u201cAngels in America\u201d is a form of revelatory art in which Tony Kushner calls the attention to how we can recognize ourselves in others and understand how our differences can be amalgamated together and make us stronger through tough times. Art holds our hands so that we can cross our own thresholds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the America of the 80\u2019s, reality was harsh, and the different communities didn\u2019t communicate. They preferred to stay in their own bubbles and, when they did leave their bubbles, criticism took place. There was little empathy or collective effort. The diversity was something negative, resulting in more isolation. \u201cAngels in America\u201d is a … Continue reading Art beyond dreams : the revelatory power of “Angels in America”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4996,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[12,344651,344649,344650],"class_list":["post-1001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022","tag-art","tag-dreams-dreams","tag-revelation","tag-threshold"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4996"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}