The Nepal premiere of the widely acclaimed play Angels in America: Millennium Approaches was enacted on June 5.[break]
Directed by US Fulbright Senior Scholar Dr. Deborah Merola, the play is originally by Tony Kushner. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this play which is currently the most-produced play in America, and has also been included in most USA and Nepali Universities’ drama curricula.
The US Embassy-sponsored play has professional actors from abroad and also college and university actors from Nepal.
“Since the first time I had seen the play in the 1980s, I loved it and it has been widely considered as the best American play in the last fifty years. I have even taught the play in 2003 in Nepal itself,” shared Dr Merola.
Dr. Merola has taught the play in the United States as well, and is also currently teaching it in Tribhuvan University (TU).
She mentioned that she had added Nepali elements when she directed her earlier plays in Nepal, but this play is a full production without any changes.
“The main idea behind this production here was to share this great contemporary American drama among the audience here, and let the play speak for itself,” she added.
The play opens with Rabbi Isador Chemelwitz alone onstage with a small wooden coffin, preaching at the funeral of Sarah Ironson, the grandmother of a Jewish family.
He admits not knowing Sarah but says her kind, the strong tolerant peasant women, will no longer exist.
The play exposes the story of two troubled couples: Prior Walker, a young gay man dying of AIDS who is abandoned by his lover Louis Ironson. Also of a young Mormon woman, Harper Amaty Pitt, who is abandoned by her husband Joe Pitt. In the course of the drama, Joe Pitt discovers and struggles with his gay identity.
After the funeral of Louis’s grandmother, Prior reveals to him that he has contracted AIDS, and though Louis loves Louis, realizing that he cannot stand the strain, leaves him.
On the other hand, Joe is offered a job in the Justice Department in Washington by Roy Cohn, a gay lawyer, a prejudiced mentor and a friend who also is a homosexual. But Harper, who suffers from hallucinations and anxiety, is reluctant to move to Washington.
The fate of the two couples’ fates become intertwined when Joe stumbles upon Louis and Harper and Prior also meet in a mutual dream sequence.
As the play unfolds, we discover that Roy too has been diagnosed with AIDS. Harper confronts Joe, who denies being gay but admits he has struggled inwardly with the issue.
The play not only shows the life of AIDS sufferers but also presents a humorous, intense and tragic view of life with homosexual themes and profanity.
It not only touches the story of two parallel couples but also presents America in the mid-1980s and touches upon Judaism, Black/White racial issues, Mormonism and also offers an extensive account of the Reagan era.
The play will be performed till June 8 at Nepal Tourism Board, starting at 5:30 PM every evening. Tickets are priced at Rs 200 each.
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