I posted this on Facebook, June 9th, but need to capture it here:<\/p>\n
We saw Angels in America part 1, Millennium Approaches, on Friday June 1st, and part 2, Perestroika, on Friday June 8th, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In between those dates I reread both plays, copies I’d bought in 1993 and 1994 when they were first published, after seeing the Broadway production in 1993. Watching Perestroika this past Friday, I thought I heard several lines that seemed unfamiliar; did I glaze through them when reading the play two days before? One passage that I thought especially striking was at the end of the key scene late in the play as Prior leaves Heaven, renouncing his role as a prophet, as he accuses the angels of not seeing what’s to come, but only seeing what they fear. A striking line. I got home and checked my copy of the play. Lines not there. A bit of research: Kushner revised the plays a bit, and his final 2010 revisions were published in a 2013 combined edition. Which has those lines:<\/p>\n
“PRIOR:
\nYou haven’t seen what’s to come. You’ve only seen what you’re afraid is coming. Until it arrives — please don’t be offended but… all you can see is fear.<\/p>\n
I’m leaving Heaven to you now. I’ll take my illness with me, and. And I’ll take my death with me, too.<\/p>\n
The earth’s my home, and I want to go home.”<\/p>\n
Fun facts: among actors who played roles in earlier productions: Daniel Craig, Zachary Quinto, Cynthia Nixon, F. Murray Abraham, and Cherry Jones — not to mention Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, et al, in the 2003 HBO TV production — as detailed here: https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Angels_in_America:_Perestroika<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/berkeleyrep\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I posted this on Facebook, June 9th, but need to capture it here: We saw Angels in America part 1, Millennium Approaches, on Friday June 1st, and part 2, Perestroika, on Friday June 8th, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In … Continue reading