Angels in America

by Tony Kushner

  (The lights in the room intensify slightly as, to Prior’s horror, an inhuman voice comes out of his mouth:)

  PRIOR: —in the dark, in the dark, the Recording Angel opens its hundred eyes and snaps the spine of the Book of Life and—

  (Prior clamps his hand over his mouth; the lights return to normal.)

  PRIOR: Hush! Hush! I’m talking nonsense, I—

  (Trying to calm himself) No more mad scene, hush, hush . . .

  (Louis is on a bench in Central Park. Joe approaches, stands at a distance. They stare at each other. Louis stands.)

  LOUIS: Do you know the story of Lazarus?

  JOE: Lazarus?

  LOUIS: Lazarus. I can’t remember what happens, exactly.

  JOE: I don’t . . . Well, he was dead, Lazarus, and Jesus breathed life into him. He brought him back from death.

  LOUIS: Come here often?

  JOE: No. Yes. Yes.

  LOUIS: Back from the dead. You believe that really happened?

  JOE: I don’t know anymore what I believe.

  LOUIS: This is quite a coincidence. Us meeting.

  JOE: I followed you.

  From work. I . . . followed you here.

  (Little pause.)

  LOUIS: You followed me.

  You probably saw me that day in the washroom and thought: there’s a sweet guy, sensitive, cries for friends in trouble.

  JOE: Yes.

  LOUIS: You thought maybe I’ll cry for you.

  JOE: Yes.

  LOUIS: Well I fooled you. Crocodile tears. (He touches his heart, shrugs, then harshly) Nothing.

  (Joe reaches tentatively to touch Louis’s face. Louis pulls back.)

  LOUIS: What are you doing? Don’t do that.

  (Joe withdraws his hand and takes several steps back, ready to run.)

  JOE: Sorry. I’m sorry.

  LOUIS: I’m . . . just not— (Warning him away) I think, if you touch me, your hand might fall off or something. Worse things have happened to people who have touched me.

  JOE: Please.

  (Joe walks up to Louis.)

  JOE: Oh, boy . . .

  Can I . . .

  I . . . want . . . to touch you. Can I please just touch you . . . um, here?

  (He puts his hand on one side of Louis’s face. He holds it there.)

  JOE: I’m going to Hell for doing this.

  LOUIS: Big deal. You think it could be any worse than New York City?

  (Louis takes Joe’s hand away from his face and holds it, then:)

  LOUIS: Come on.

  JOE: Where?

  LOUIS: Home. With me.

  JOE: This makes no sense. I mean I don’t know you.

  LOUIS: Likewise.

  JOE: And what you do know about me you don’t like.

  LOUIS: The Republican stuff?

  JOE: Yeah, well for starters.

  LOUIS (Meaning it): I don’t not like that. I hate that.

  JOE: So why on earth should we—

  (Louis kisses Joe.)

  LOUIS: Strange bedfellows. I don’t know. I never made it with one of the damned before.

  I would really rather not have to spend tonight alone.

  JOE: I’m a pretty terrible person, Louis.

  LOUIS: Lou.

  (Joe steps back from Louis.)

  JOE: No, I really really am. I don’t think I deserve being loved.

  LOUIS (A nod): There? See? We already have a lot in common.

  (Louis begins to walk away. He turns, looks back at Joe. Joe follows. They exit.

  Prior listens. At first he hears nothing, then all at once, the sound of beating wings again, now frighteningly near. Prior stares up at the ceiling, terrified.)

  PRIOR: That sound, that sound, it . . . What is that, like birds or something, like a really big bird, I’m frightened, I . . . No! No fear, find the anger, find the . . . anger! (Standing on the bed, fierce, up at the ceiling) My blood is clean, my brain is fine, I can handle pressure, I am a gay man and I am used to pressure, to trouble, I am tough and strong and . . . Oh. Oh my goodness. I . . . (He is washed over by an intense sexual feeling) Ooohhhh . . . I’m hot, I’m . . . so . . . (He sinks to his knees) Aw Jeez what is going on here I . . . must have a fever, I—

  (The bedside lamp flickers wildly! Prior screams. Then the bed begins to lurch violently back and forth. The room is filled with a deep bass creaking and groaning, like the timbers of a ship under immense stress, coming from the ceiling. The bed stops moving as the creaking and groaning sounds intensify; the bedside lamp glows brighter and brighter as, from the ceiling, there’s a fine rain of plaster dust.)

  PRIOR: OH! PLEASE, OH PLEASE! Something’s coming in here, I’m scared, I don’t like this at all, something’s approaching and I—

  (There is a great blaze of triumphal music, heralding.)

  PRIOR: OH!

  (Four thunderous chords sound, and with each chord the bedroom is saturated with colored light: first, extraordinary, harsh, cold, pale blue; then, rich, brilliant, warm gold; then, hot, bilious green; and finally, spectacular royal purple. Then there’s silence for several beats. Prior stares wildly around the purple-colored room.)

  PRIOR (An awestruck whisper): God almighty.

  Very Steven Spielberg.

  (A sound, like a plummeting meteor, tears down from very, very far above the earth, hurtling at an incredible velocity toward the bedroom. The light seems to be sucked out of the room as the projectile approaches. Right before the light is completely extinguished, there’s a terrifying CRASH as something immense strikes earth. The bedroom shudders and pieces of the ceiling’s plaster, lathe and wiring rain down on and around Prior’s bed; as the room is plunged into absolute darkness, we hear the whole ceiling give way.

  A beat, and then, in a shower of unearthly white light, spreading great opalescent gray-silver wings, the Angel descends through the ceiling into the room and floats above the bed.)

  ANGEL: Greetings, Prophet;

  The Great Work begins:

  The Messenger has arrived.

  (Blackout.)

  END OF PART ONE

  Part Two:

  PERESTROIKA

  First draft completed at the Russian River

  April 11, 1991

  THE CHARACTERS

  IN PERESTROIKA

  ROY M. COHN,* a successful New York lawyer and unofficial power broker.

  JOSEPH PORTER PITT, chief clerk for Justice Theodore Wilson of the Federal Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

  HARPER AMATY PITT, Joe’s wife, an agoraphobic with a mild Valium addiction.

  LOUIS IRONSON, a word processor working for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

  PRIOR WALTER, Louis’s boyfriend. Occasionally works as a club designer or caterer, otherwise lives very modestly but with great style off a small trust fund.

  HANNAH PORTER PITT, Joe’s mother, formerly of Salt Lake City, now in Brooklyn, staying in Harper and Joe’s apartment.

  BELIZE, a registered nurse and former drag queen whose name was originally Norman Arriaga; Belize is a drag name that stuck.

  THE ANGEL, four divine emanations, Fluor, Phosphor, Lumen and Candle; manifest in One: the Continental Principality of America. She has magnificent steel-gray wings.

  Other Characters in Perestroika

  ALEKSII ANTEDILLUVIANOVICH PRELAPSARIANOV (pronounced AntedilooviAHNuhvich PrelapsARianohv), the World’s Oldest Bolshevik, is played by the actor playing Hannah. He should speak with a Russian accent, strong but comprehensible.

  MR. LIES, Harper’s imaginary friend, a travel agent, played by the actor playing Belize. In style of dress and speech he suggests a jazz musician; he always wears a large lapel badge emblazoned “IOTA” (International Order of Travel Agents).

  HENRY, Roy’s doctor, played by the actor playing Hannah.

  ETHEL ROSENBERG, played by the actor playing Hannah.

  The mannequins in the Diorama Room in the Mormon Visitors’ Center in Act Three:

  THE FATHER, p
layed by the actor playing Joe.

  THE RECORDED VOICE OF CALEB, his son, done by the actor playing Belize.

  THE RECORDED VOICE OF ORRIN, his other son, done by the actor playing the Angel.

  THE MOTHER, played by the actor playing the Angel.

  EMILY, a nurse, played by the actor playing the Angel.

  The Continental Principalities, inconceivably powerful Apparatchik/Bureaucrat Aggregate Angelic Entities of whom the Angel of America is a peer:

  THE ANGEL EUROPA, played by the actor playing Joe.

  THE ANGEL AFRICANII, played by the actor playing Harper.

  THE ANGEL OCEANIA, played by the actor playing Belize.

  THE ANGEL ASIATICA, played by the actor playing Hannah.

  THE ANGEL AUSTRALIA, played by the actor playing Louis.

  THE ANGEL ANTARCTICA, played by the actor playing Roy.

  The voice at the top of Act One, Scene 1, announcing Prelapsarianov; the recorded greeting in the Mormon Visitors’ Center in Act Three, Scene 3; the voice introducing the Council of Principalities in Act Five, Scene 5; and the voice of the BBC reporter in the same scene should be the voice of the actor playing the Angel.

  * See the footnote in The Characters list of Millennium Approaches.

  Perestroika is dedicated to Kimberly T. Flynn

  Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON, “On Art”

  ACT ONE:

  Spooj

  December 1985

  Scene 1

  In the darkness a Voice announces:

  A VOICE: In the Hall of Deputies, the Kremlin. December 1985. Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the World’s Oldest Living Bolshevik.

  (Lights up on Prelapsarianov at a podium before a great red flag. He is unimaginably old and totally blind.)

  ALEKSII ANTEDILLUVIANOVICH PRELAPSARIANOV: The Great Question before us is: Are we doomed? The Great Question before us is: Will the Past release us? The Great Question before us is: Can we Change? In Time? And we all desire that Change will come.

  (A little pause, then with sudden, violent passion:)

  And Theory? How are we to proceed without Theory? What System of Thought have these Reformers to present to this mad swirling planetary disorganization, to the Inevident Welter of fact, event, phenomenon, calamity? Do they have, as we did, a beautiful Theory, as bold, as Grand, as comprehensive a construct? You can’t imagine, when we first read the Classic Texts, when in the dark vexed night of our ignorance and terror the seed-words sprouted and shoved incomprehension aside, when the incredible bloody vegetable struggle up and through into Red Blooming gave us Praxis, True Praxis, True Theory married to Actual Life . . . You who live in this Sour Little Age cannot imagine the grandeur of the prospect we gazed upon: like standing atop the highest peak in the mighty Caucasus, and viewing in one all-knowing glance the mountainous, granite order of creation. We were one with the Sidereal Pulse then, in the blood in our heads we heard the tick of the Infinite. You cannot imagine it. I weep for you.

  And what have you to offer now, children of this Theory? What have you to offer in its place? (Blistering contempt) Market Incentives? American Cheeseburgers? Watered-down Bukharinite stopgap makeshift Capitalism! NEPmen! Pygmy children of a gigantic race!

  Change? Yes, we must must change, only show me the Theory, and I will be at the barricades, show me the book of the next Beautiful Theory, and I promise you these blind eyes will see again, just to read it, to devour that text. Show me the words that will reorder the world, or else keep silent.

  If the snake sheds his skin before a new skin is ready, naked he will be in the world, prey to the forces of chaos. Without his skin he will be dismantled, lose coherence and die. Have you, my little serpents, a new skin?

  (An immense, booming command) Then we dare not, we cannot, we MUST NOT move ahead!

  Scene 2

  The same night as the end of Millennium Approaches. Joe and Louis enter Louis’s new apartment in the arctic wastes of Alphabetland; barren of furniture, unpainted, messy, grim.

  Tense little pause. Louis embarrassed takes in the room, and begins to gather up the books, newspapers and clothing strewn on the floor, tossing them behind the bed, talking all the while:

  LOUIS: Alphabetland. This is where the Jews lived when they first arrived. And now, a hundred years later, the place to which their more seriously fucked-up grandchildren repair. (Yiddish accent) This is progress?

  (Giving up the housecleaning) It’s a terrible mess.

  JOE: It’s a little dirty.

  LOUIS (Defensive): Messy, not dirty. That’s an important distinction. It’s dust, not dirt, chemical-slash-mineral, not organic, not like microbes, more like—

  (He walks toward Joe) Can I take your tie off?

  JOE (Stepping back): No, wait, I’m, um, um, uncomfortable, actually.

  LOUIS: Me, too, actually. Being uncomfortable turns me on.

  JOE: Your, uh, boyfriend. He’s sick. And I . . .

  LOUIS: Very. He’s not my boyfriend, we—

  We can cap everything that leaks in latex, we can smear our bodies with nonoxynol-9, safe, chemical sex. Messy, but not dirty.

  (Little pause)

  Look I want to but I don’t want to beg.

  JOE: No, I—

  LOUIS: Oh come on. Please.

  JOE: I should go.

  LOUIS: Fine! Ohblahdee, ohblahdah, life goes on. Rah.

  JOE: What?

  LOUIS: Hurry home to the missus.

  (Points to Joe’s left-hand ring finger)

  Married gentlemen before cruising the Ramble should first remove their bands of gold.

  (Joe stares at his wedding ring.)

  LOUIS: Go if you’re going. Go.

  (Joe starts to leave, hesitates, then turns back; he hesitates again, then goes to Louis and hugs him, awkwardly, collegially.)

  JOE: I’m not staying.

  LOUIS (Sniffing): What kind of cologne is that?

  JOE (A beat, then): Fabergé.

  LOUIS: OH! Very butch, very heterosexual high school. Fabergé.

  (Louis gently breaks the hug, steps back a little.)

  LOUIS: You smell nice.

  JOE: So do you.

  LOUIS: Smell is . . . an incredibly complex and underappreciated physical phenomenon. Inextricably bound up with sex.

  JOE: I . . . didn’t know that.

  LOUIS: It is. The nose is really a sexual organ.

  Smelling. Is desiring. We have five senses, but only two that go beyond the boundaries . . . of ourselves. When you look at someone, it’s just bouncing light, or when you hear them, it’s just sound waves, vibrating air, or touch is just nerve endings tingling. Know what a smell is?

  JOE: It’s . . . some sort of . . . No.

  LOUIS: It’s made of the molecules of what you’re smelling. Some part of you, where you meet the air, is airborne.

  (Louis steps carefully closer to Joe, who still seems ready, though not as ready, to bolt.)

  LOUIS: Little molecules of Joe . . . (Leaning in, inhaling deeply) Up my nose.

  Mmmm . . . Nice. Try it.

  JOE: Try . . .?

  LOUIS: Inhale.

  (Joe leans toward Louis, inhales.)

  LOUIS: Nice?

  JOE: Yes.

  I should—

  LOUIS (Quietly): Ssssshhhh.

  Smelling. And tasting.

  (Moving in closer) First the nose, then the tongue.

  JOE (Taking a half-step back, scared): I just don’t—

  LOUIS (Stepping forward): They work as a team, see. The nose tells the body—the heart, the mind, the fingers the cock—what it wants, and then the tongue explores, finding out what’s edible, what isn’t, what’s most mineral, food for the blood, food for the bones, and therefore most delectable.

  (Louis licks the side of Joe’s cheek.)

  LOUIS: Salt.

  (Louis
kisses Joe, who holds back a moment and then responds.)

  LOUIS: Mmm. Iron. Clay.

  (Louis slips his hand down the front of Joe’s pants, groping him. Joe shudders. Louis pulls his hand out, smells and tastes his fingers, and then holds them for Joe to smell.)

  LOUIS: Chlorine. Copper. Earth.

  (They kiss again.)

  LOUIS: What does that taste like?

  JOE: Um . . .

  LOUIS: What?

  JOE: Well . . . Nighttime.

  LOUIS: Stay?

  JOE: Yes.

  (They kiss again. Louis starts unbuttoning Joe’s shirt.)

  JOE: Louis?

  LOUIS: Hmmm?

  JOE: What did that mean, ohblahdee ohblah—

  LOUIS: Sssssh. Words are the worst things. Breathe. Smell.

  JOE: But—

  LOUIS: Or if you have to talk, talk dirty.

  Scene 3

  The same night. The sounds of wind and snow. Mr. Lies sits alone, still in his snowsuit, playing the oboe, in what’s left of Harper’s imaginary Antarctica, which is now bare, grim and grimy.

  Mr. Lies stops playing.

  MR. LIES: The oboe: official instrument of the International Order of Travel Agents. If the duck was a songbird it would sing like this. Nasal, desolate, the call of migratory things.

  (Harper enters dragging a small pine tree which she has felled, its slender stump-end shredded and splintered. The fantasy explorer gear from Act Three, Scene 3, of Millennium is gone; she is dressed in the hastily assembled outfit in which she fled the apartment at the end of Act Two, Scene 9: a thin pullover, a skirt, torn tights, gloves. She’s been outdoors for three days now and looks it—filthy and disheveled. Her previous pioneer determination, stretched thin, has become desperate and angry.)

  HARPER: I’m FREEZING!

  MR. LIES (Pointing to the tree): Where did you get that?

  HARPER: From the great Antarctic pine forests. Right over that hill.

  MR. LIES: There are no pine forests in Antarctica.

  HARPER: I chewed this pine tree down. With my teeth. Like a beaver. I’m hungry, I haven’t eaten in three days! I’m going to use it to build . . . something, maybe a fire.