New York Daily News

SOARING!

‘Angels in America’ revival has dark power

- JOE DZIEMIANOW­ICZ THEATER CRITIC

DESPERATE TIMES, desperate cherubs. The thought hit me near the end of the first half of the remarkable Broadway revival of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” which stars Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield.

That’s when the messenger from above (Amanda Lawrence) blew in. This angel is so ratty and bedraggled it’s like she’s out of “Mad Max: Fury Road,” not heaven. Then again, maybe that’s what heaven has come to.

The unsettling winged wonder, hoisted aloft by a handful of people in black, is just one of the eye-opening, brain-jogging jolts of this revival at the Neil Simon Theatre — the most electrifyi­ng production you’re apt to ever see of the author’s masterwork.

Twenty-five years after its Tony- and Pulitzer-winning first Broadway run, the scope and richness of the seven-hour, two-part saga — the taut “Millennium Approaches,” followed by the somewhat messier “Perestroik­a” — remain as impressive as ever.

Direction by two-time Tony winner Marianne Elliott (“War Horse,” “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime”) amplifies the play’s powers and wrings out every drop of emotion. Slashes of neon, rotating set pieces and a seamless restlessne­ss give the staging its own striking distinctio­n. Set in Reagan-era 1980s New York, the play, subtitled “A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” covers an array of hot topics — AIDS, politics, homophobia, sexuality, anti-Semitism. Scenes toggle between reality and hallucinat­ions in three overlappin­g story lines.

In the main one, AIDS-afflicted Prior Walter (Garfield), is abandoned by his lover Louis (James McArdle) and turns to his no-nonsense nurse BFF Belize (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) for comfort.

Joe Pitt (Lee Pace), a closeted Mormon lawyer, juggles his Valium-hooked wife Harper (Denise Gough), implacable mother Hannah (Susan Brown) and his sexual desire for Louis.

Joe also deals with Roy Cohn (Lane), the venomous real-life lawyer who denies that he’s got AIDS and that he’s gay.

The cast, largely intact from the show’s run last year at the National Theatre in London, is uniformly very effective. Lane embodies Cohn’s phony flash and ugly toxicity so vividly it’s scary to think such a person existed. Gough and Pace nail dueling dimensions of the loneliness of coming out.

McArdle, unknown to American audiences, is a real find; he brings vitality and anguish as the conflicted and guiltwrack­ed Louis.

As the effeminate Prior, who peppers conversati­ons with fluty giggles, Garfield’s bold performanc­e exerts a magnetic force that doesn’t let go.

Today “Angels in America” is a two-sided mirror, reflecting what’s changed and what hasn’t. The desire for “more life,” as Prior declares, remains constant. Just like the power of this sprawling play.

 ??  ?? Broadway revival of Tony- and Pulitzer-winning “Angels in America” features (clockwise from below) James McArdle (left) and Nathan StewartJar­rett; Nathan Lane; Amanda Lawrence as an apocalypti­c angel, and Denise Gough and Lee Pace.
Broadway revival of Tony- and Pulitzer-winning “Angels in America” features (clockwise from below) James McArdle (left) and Nathan StewartJar­rett; Nathan Lane; Amanda Lawrence as an apocalypti­c angel, and Denise Gough and Lee Pace.

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