'Angels' transcends reality's boundaries

By Chan Tran
Daily Forty-Niner

When trying to explain Tony Kushner's two-and-a-half-hour play "Angels in America, Part One; Millenium Approaches" one may come up with a kaleidoscope of sub-plots, sub-themes and sub-characters that could take a lifetime to see through.

The University Players production, which opened Nov. 9 and runs until Dec. 2, is a daunting work for the eight actors who handle gender-bending between 20 different characters and 20-minute long monologues masterfully.

"Angels in America" has been dubbed "a gay fantasia on national themes," and the first part, "Millennium Approaches," opens up the mighty passage way.

Through the course of three acts, (cryptically titled "Bad News," "In Vitro" and "Not Yet Conscious") the audience is transported, mainly through homosexual eyes, to the Reagan era, when the country's political figures turned their eyes away from the danger of  AIDS.

Intertwined with the political message is the portrayal of relationships breaking down in light of a conservative nation's misunderstanding of religion, sex, community and minority acceptance.

The majority of these themes are told through two couples, one straight and the other homosexual.

Joe Pitt (Joeseph Arrigoni) and Harper Pitt (Danielle Bearden-Mead) are a straight couple who go through overextended marital problems.

Harper is a mentally deranged, sex-hating, pill-popping, hallucination-filled Mormon, who meanders through her marriage and personal problems with the help of an imaginary pimped-up friend Mr. Lies (Anthony Guillmeno).

More than just a Valium addict, she constantly fears the truth about Joe's sexual identity.  Joe is an introvert who struggles with advancing his political career while dealing with Harper's deteriorating sanity at home.

Roy Cohn (Jack Griguoli), the attorney most famous during the Ethel Rosenberg trial, is Joe's puppeter, a person so success driven that he ends up neglecting his own suffering from AIDS.

Coping with the true reality of AIDS is the infected Prior Walter (Phil Van Hest) and his straight-as-can-be, gay partner Louis Ironson (Jason Weissbrod).

The bulk of the play revolves around Walter's personal revelation and ascension to heaven. Walter approaches his own death in a nonchalant manner and risks losing Louis in the process.

As the show develops, people's preconceived notions of sexual identity are tested through characters' revelations.   The vocal power of Cohn shows a bitter individual unable to label himself a "homosexual."

As he puts it: "I am a heterosexual who has sex with men." Joe, on the other hand, slowly succumbs to his own personal demons and in long-distance phone call he reveals his own homosexuality to his mother, Hannah Pitt (Channel Oliver).

All of this just skims the surface of the subject matters the play deals with, most of which bashes politics, religion and the Reagan administration.

"Millenium Approaches," was beautifullly written by Kushner, who manages to build a maze of reality and fantasy.

The play, while far from easy to sit through, challenges the audience to deal with the hypocrisy of politics during much of the '80s from a left-wing perspective.

Anger, morality, mortality and death are some of the themes placed in the boxing ring with Christianity and Jewish theology, along with a side order of the social family movements of the decade.

The University Players are deserving of praises for keeping the audience enthralled during some of the most confusing and uncomfortable scenes.

Each actor plays no less than two characters except for Weissbrod, whose portrayal of the shrewd-minded Louis is the standout performance of the production.

Van Hest gets the iron man award, clocking in the most time on stage with his portrayal of the bed-ridden Walter. Without giving away too much, he also shows the audience his best physical attributes.

Bearden-Mead's ditzy and elusive portrayal of Harper is warmly distant while Griguoli's powerful delivery of Cohn deafens the ear but gives the right character message. Oliver gets the chameleon award, playing from a mix bag of male to female characters almost effortlessly.

The minor characters of Anthony Guillmeno and Talia Rose add extra spice where needed, and sometimes invigorated a scene with their unfamiliarity.

Ashley Carr, the director, gets the most out of the unique seating of the Studio Theatre, where the stage is in the middle with three sections of seating all around. He uses the very simplistic lighting, leaving the audience with a feeling of open space and grandeur surrounding the actors.

The music and sound effects that served as transitions between scenes could have been toned down ? especially the horns of heaven at the end. However, it is apparent that Carr has handled this production with care, letting his characters bring life into the words using few stage props.

That is not to say he does not have some nice effects and surprises along the way especially the floating feather sequences.

In the end, regardless of the complexities, the University Players' production of "Millenium Approaches" respectfully brings Kushner's grand vision of gay America to the smallness of the Cal State Long Beach community. Every person involved should hold their heads up high and polish their wings as this production should soar high this season.

"Angels In America, Part 2; Perestroika" is scheduled to run April 6-21, 2001 with the same cast as "Millenium Approaches."

Jack Griguoli (Rory Cohn) and Channell Oliver (Henry) top, Anthony Guillmeno and Jason Weissbrod, bottom, in University Players' production "Angels in America Part 1; Millennium Approaches," which runs until Dec. 2 in the Studio Theatre at CSULB.

Photos by Keith Ian Polakoff

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