The New York Times - USA (2020-10-10)

screen mouths and a not-quite-synchro-

nized choir of big, ranting voices.

We may not comprehend all the words or

ideas, but we get the full terror of beings,

however divine, spooked by change. That

they are played by Patti LuPone, Nikki M.

James, Linda Emond and Daphne Rubin-

Vega, at their most stentorian, is a bonus,

suggesting that heaven may yet be a the-

ater-lover’s paradise.

We get another vision of paradise in the

production’s central excerpt: the scene in

which Cohn, dying in his hospital room, is

confronted by the brilliantly underplaying

Merkerson as Belize, who happens to be his

nurse. In a neat star turn, Cohn is played as

an alternately flinty and squishy old repro-

bate, saturated in evil and yet still (barely)

human, by Glenn Close at her uncompro-

mising best.

Though some of the compound ironies

that bring these two together are lost in the

lack of context, wonderful new ones arise,

as they must from plays that intend to last.

When Cohn, sometimes fully aware of

who Belize is — “my Negro night nurse,” he

snarls — and sometimes confusing him for

the angel of death, asks what heaven is like,

Belize’s answer is a killer. Mixing camp and

deadly earnest, he offers an ultimately

hopeful vision of heaven, which in his cos-

mology but not Cohn’s includes Balenciaga

gowns, red corsages, racial impurity and

gender confusion.

And, most important, voting booths.

WAS EVER A MANso lordly brought so low?

Having contracted the same deadly virus

he formerly dismissed as someone else’s

pandemic, he now lies in a hospital, depend-

ing on a secret stash of experimental drugs

unavailable to anyone else.

This is of course Roy Cohn, whose reptil-

ian résumé includes stints as the Rosen-

bergs’ executioner, Nixon’s fixer and Don-

ald J. Trump’s mentor.

You thought I meant someone else?

Certainly the creators of Thursday

night’s starry fund-raising film for amfAR

— the Foundation for AIDS Research — in-

tended the double vision. “The Great Work

Begins,” subtitled “Scenes From ‘Angels in

America,’ ” is not only a benefit for the orga-

nization’s Covid-19 initiatives but also an in-

dictment of the current administration’s

cocktail of neglect and delusion in a public

health crisis.

Actually, double vision doesn’t begin to

encompass the multiplicity of marvels oper-

ating concurrently in the full work from

which the scenes are excerpted: Tony

Kushner’s two-part, seven-hour “gay fanta-

sia on national themes.” Like all classics, it

keeps changing as the light of new times

strikes it from different angles.

Since 1993, when the first part opened on

Broadway, “Angels in America” has been

produced all over the world, been revived

repeatedly in New York and London, been

turned into a Mike Nichols mini-series and

even an avant-garde opera. Often in these

iterations it has seemed to be about AIDS, of

course, for that is its instigating subject.

Other times, its ecological, political, reli-

gious, romantic, communitarian or cosmo-

logical themes have taken precedence.

Today, the light of Covid-19 turns out to be

especially harsh and revealing, turning the

play, so concerned with prophecy, into a

prophet itself. How, it now seems to ask, can

we have squandered in just a few months

the decades’ worth of suffering and organ-

izing and scientific advances invested in the

struggle against AIDS?

To that end, the five excerpts offered by

Ellie Heyman, the production’s director, are

not randomly chosen, though they may

seem so at first: A newcomer to the story

would have little idea of what was going on.

Aptly, a title card encourages viewers to “let

these scenes wash over you.”

Nor does the brilliant casting, gleefully

jumbling race and gender and age regard-

less of the characters’ written traits, en-

courage narrative coherence. Harper Pitt,

the Valium-addicted young wife of a clos-

eted gay Mormon lawyer, is portrayed in

the first scene by Vella Lovell, best known

for her role on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” Later

Harper is played, just as gorgeously, by Lois

Smith, the 89-year-old stage treasure.

Likewise, Prior Walter, a drag performer

beset not only by AIDS but also by strange

visions of angels, is played first by Andrew

Rannells, later by Paul Dano and finally,

most simply and movingly, by Brian Tyree

Henry. And Prior’s friend Belize, a nurse,

gets different takes from Larry Owens, S.

Epatha Merkerson and Jeremy O. Harris.

If the thread of the story is thus left some-

what frayed, well, narrative coherence was

never the play’s top concern anyway. The

tumble of ideas and images and outrage

was. That all comes through vividly in Hey-

man’s visual approach, in which the actors

were filmed separately and then collaged

into group compositions that make them

seem to be meeting in some recognizable

but not-quite-real plane of imagination,

both of Earth and above it.

This turns out to be a perfect match for

the material, and has been pulled off so

glitchlessly as to suggest new directions for

streaming theater in general. (The 50-

minute film, including interstitial fund-rais-

ing pitches, remains available on YouTube

through Monday at 9:30 p.m.)

The compositing technique is at its most

melodramatically expressive in material

that is usually the play’s hardest to pull off:

the scene in which the Angel of America

holds forth, at some length and in Whitman-

esque cadences often difficult to parse, on

the disasters human beings have caused by

insisting on being human.

Heyman, working with the creative direc-

tor Paul Tate dePoo III, effectively repre-

sents the Angel by her four “emanations,”

superimposed so that she sometimes seems

to have three eyes or eight, several wide-

JESSE GREEN CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Seeing a New Disease but the Same Neglect

Starry excerpts of

Tony Kushner’s

1993 AIDS-era

classic discovers

premonitions of

another pandemic.

AMFAR

Andrew Rannells as a

hallucinating Prior Walter in

the “Angels in America”

performance.

The Great Work Begins:

Scenes From ‘Angels

in America’

Through Oct 12;

thegreatworkbegins.org

C2 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020 K

Much of the theater made since the pan-
demic has been on Zoom, but surprisingly
the behaviors induced by the platform itself
have been underexplored. Enter Natalie
Margolin’s goofy, eye-opening — and hope-
fully not overly prescient — play “The Party
Hop.”
Set “three years into quarantine,” the
comedy, which Dramatists Play Service is
streaming on YouTube through Nov. 10, fol-
lows three college students on a wild night
out. They share chocolates, do a few rounds
of “Never Have I Ever,” drink, dance and,
for one of them, try to land a first kiss. And
they do it all on Zoom.
“She might be the kind of person that ar-
rives and changes her background for at-
tention,” Ava (Beanie Feldstein) warily
says of the transfer student Nancy (a hilari-
ous, scene-stealing Catherine Cohen). Oh,
but she is, Ava, she is.
The ensemble, which includes Ben Platt,
Ayo Edebiri, Kaitlyn Dever and Ashley
Park, is crackerjack, but it’s Margolin’s set-
up that makes the most lasting impression:
Life, and theater, could be online for quite a
while, so let’s make the most of things.
Here are a few other initiatives with a
similar attitude, from left-field casting to
virtual shows by international companies
that might not be able to travel for some
time. Let’s go for it all, they seem to say —
what do we have to lose?

They’re Playing Who?
Glenn Close as Roy Cohn. Lois Smith and
Vella Lovell as the hallucinating housewife
Harper Pitt. Linda Emond, Nikki M. James,
Patti LuPone and Daphne Rubin-Vega as a
composite angel. There is inventive casting,
and then there is “The Great Work Begins:
Scenes From ‘Angels in America,’ ” in which
these actors take on roles they might never
have landed in physical productions of Tony

Kushner’s two-part epic. (Through Mon-

day; thegreatworkbegins.org)

Vermont Gets Real

As physical stagings gingerly resume,

Northern Stage, in White River Junction,

Vt., is mixing them up with online availabil-

ity. This month, for example, Stephanie Ev-

erett performs her solo “I’m Fine, I’m Fine”

in person (through Oct. 25) before it goes

online (Oct. 22-Nov. 29). Anybody can

watch a stream of Greg Keller’s two-hander

“Dutch Masters,” through Oct. 21. Recorded

in September, the actors John Kroft and

Nuri Hazzard traveled from New York and

quarantined before sharing a physical

stage, but no audience. (northernstage.org)

In Their Own Words

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is partner-

ing with institutions across the country to

present “That Kindness” as a web offering.

The playwright and performer known as V,

formerly Eve Ensler, interviewed nurses

and assembled their stories into a collage-

like play, with help from James Lecesne

(“The Trevor Project”). The cast includes

Connie Britton, Billy Porter, LaChanze,

Rosie O’Donnell, Rosario Dawson and

Marisa Tomei, among others. (Thursday at

7 p.m., through Oct. 18; bam.org)

Over in Britain, Original Theater Online

is presenting Torben Betts’s “Apollo 13: The

Dark Side of the Moon.” The playwright

used NASA transcripts from the mission

that faced disaster in 1970, balancing those

scenes with fictional elements. (Through

Dec. 31; originaltheatreonline.com)

The Scottish Plays

The National Theater of Scotland has en-

listed a diverse group of writers, directors

and actors for its “Scenes for Survival.”

Some of those short pieces are stand-

alones, others excerpts from longer works

(a slice of Irvine Welsh’s “Trainspotting” is

performed in sign language). Highlights in-

clude Mark Bonnar in the Rob Drummond

monologue “Larchview” and the dryly

funny “Ian and Sheena.” Happily, Scottish

crime writers are represented: look for Val

McDermid (“First Things”); Ian Rankin

(the new Rebus story “The Lockdown

Blues,” with Brian Cox); and Denise Mina

(the funny “Aleister Crowley Summons the

Devil”). (Nationaltheatrescotland.com)

The most famous Scotland-set play of all,

however, remains “Macbeth,” which gets a

virtual immersive treatment from the Big

Telly Theater Company. The start of the run

anchors the Belfast International Arts Fes-

tival, then the production is hosted by the

Creation Theater. (Wednesday through Oct.

31; big-telly.com)

Back to Country

Mark Ruffalo and Michael Cera are fluent

Kenneth Lonergan whisperers, so it’s excit-

ing to see them lined up for a reading of the

playwright’s wonderful “Hold On to Me

Darling.” Ruffalo takes on the central role of

the narcissistic country star Strings Mc-

Crane. Be warned that this may test your

virtual endurance as the play runs almost

three hours. (Sunday at 7 p.m., through

Wednesday; in.live/ruffalo)

Words and Music

Melissa Errico is an exquisite singer who

enjoys deep dives into her material,

whether it’s by Michel Legrand or Stephen

Sondheim. Now she teams up with The New

Yorker writer Adam Gopnik for “Love, De-

sire and Mystery — Il Parle, Elle Chante,” a

trio of livestreams from Florence Gould

Hall in Manhattan. The first installment will

include a new song by Gopnik and David

Shire from their work-in-progress musical

about Eleanor of Aquitaine. (Wednesday at

7 p.m.; fiaf.org)

No Passport Needed

If arty and subtitled is your jam, the Jersey

City Theater Center’s Voices International

Theater Festival presents productions

(some prerecorded, some livestreamed)

representing 20 countries. An upside of the

pandemic is that we can now discover work

by small companies that might not have

traveled to the United States. (Oct. 16-25;

jctcenter.org)

Biblical Proportions

Will “Sticks & Stones,” which uses the story

of David and Goliath to address teenage

bullying, join the elite ranks of hit musicals

inspired by the Bible? The online concert

premiere of John McDaniel and Scott Logs-

don’s show has enlisted quite the cast: Au-

dra McDonald, Javier Muñoz, George Sala-

zar, the “Newsies” and “Les Mi” alum

Joshua Colley as the boy with the sling and

a very large ensemble. (Oct. 16-20;

broadwaycares.org)

Nurses Get Their Say,

And Scotland Speaks

Want to go to the theater?

Well, going online might be

the best way to get there.

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

Clockwise from top left:

Screen grab of Mark

Ruffalo, Gretchen Mol and

Michael Cera rehearsing a

reading of Kenneth

Lonergan’s “Hold On to Me

Darling.”