Angels In America Play Analysis
In 1991 Tony Kushner premiered his latest two part play called Angels in America in San Francisco. It follows the lives of Prior, Louis, Joe, Harper, Roy, and Hannah in New York during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. At the very beginning the audience learns that Prior and Louis are in a relationship, and Prior tells Louis that he had AIDS. Louis can’t handle losing him, so he leaves and ends up starting a relationship with closeted Joe. Joe is a Mormon, Republican that is married to Harper, an anxiety Valium addicted housewife, and works for Roy who is also a closeted gay and has AIDS. Joe, before getting with Louis, desperately fights his sexuality and asked his mother Hannah for help. By the time Hannah gets to New York Joe has left Harper, happened
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Hannah, Joe, and Harper are all Mormons, and when Joe comes out it is extremely hard for all of them. It takes Joe most the play to even admit to himself that he is gay. Then there was the emotionally unstable Harper, Joe’s wife that could barely stand living with him before. She has a Valium addition that causes her to have extremely vivid visions. One of which connected her and Prior together, while he was having a fever delirium. It from him that she had the first idea that Joe was gay. When she confronted him, he denied it, but they both knew he was lying. Joe became scared, his religion and political views told him that being gay was wrong. He even tells Harper that he has fought those feeling with all his might for years but they keep coming back. Much like Harper’s continuous need for Valium. A few times she promised she wouldn’t take anymore but she always fails. When Joe finally accepts his sexuality and leaves Harper, it seems that it is also the same time Harper comes back to herself. Even though both of them pretty much hate one another, they both go through the same stages. Firstly of comfortable denial, then finally becoming free of their anchors: each other. At the end, it is Harper that finds peace while Joe is left alone, without wife or
Hannah, Joe, and Harper are all Mormons, and when Joe comes out it is extremely hard for all of them. It takes Joe most the play to even admit to himself that he is gay. Then there was the emotionally unstable Harper, Joe’s wife that could barely stand living with him before. She has a Valium addition that causes her to have extremely vivid visions. One of which connected her and Prior together, while he was having a fever delirium. It from him that she had the first idea that Joe was gay. When she confronted him, he denied it, but they both knew he was lying. Joe became scared, his religion and political views told him that being gay was wrong. He even tells Harper that he has fought those feeling with all his might for years but they keep coming back. Much like Harper’s continuous need for Valium. A few times she promised she wouldn’t take anymore but she always fails. When Joe finally accepts his sexuality and leaves Harper, it seems that it is also the same time Harper comes back to herself. Even though both of them pretty much hate one another, they both go through the same stages. Firstly of comfortable denial, then finally becoming free of their anchors: each other. At the end, it is Harper that finds peace while Joe is left alone, without wife or