As part of my heavily structured plan to avoid productive tasks, and my writing, I’ve been watching the HBO Angels in America that a friend finally gave me on videotape. Which reminds me that I saw a real live production of the play a few months ago, and I don’t think I ever properly wrote about that here, so I’m going to talk a bit about both of them.
I’ve only seen the HBO edition of the first part, as was the play only the first one. I’ve read both of them, but as of today, only seen productions of the first one.
In the live production, Louis (the Jewish boyfriend who leaves his lover whose (slowly) dying of AIDS) was amazing. I had a hard time being ambivalent about the character (as I suspect you’re supposed to), Prior (the (slowly) dying boyfriend), wasn’t quite as good, but he was good, and most of the other characters ranged from so-so, to horrible.
I didn’t like the HBO Louis very much, but the Prior is way better. Which I think is a good thing, ultimately. I liked Joe, the (closeted) gay Mormon, whose married to a valium addict more than I perhaps should have (probably because he was cute,) and Mary Louise Parker did a wonderful job as Harper (his wife).
I suppose the thing I disliked most about the HBO version, is that they cut my favorite scene, where Joe’s mother, and her real-estate agent are looking out over Salt-Lake City, talking about saint’s, moving on, and other stuff. They’re smoking (the Mormon mother, included, which is a bit funny,) and in response to discussion of the church of later day saints, the mother says something like “(laterday saints) are the only kind of saint’s that are left.” Which struck a chord with me, for some strange unknown reason.
So I’ll watch the second half tomorrow, and maybe I’ll write another report of it. Or not. My memory from reading the play, is that the second one tries to hard to explain things, and answer questions.
As we’ve all learned from the last entry, answers and I don’t seem to get along very much. It’s all about the questions.