The play is called Angels in America: Millennium Approaches.
Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
The tone of the play goes back and forth between comedy, dark humor and the supernatural. Some special effects may require special machinery (for example, the Angel is supposed to crash through the ceiling of the theater) but Kushner insists on the fact that this machinery is meant to be visible by the spectators. In the "Playwright's Notes" he says: "The play benefits from a pared-down style of presentation, with minimal scenery and scene shifts done rapidly (no blackouts!), employing the cast as well as stagehands — which makes for an actor-driven event, as this must be. The moments of magic [...] are to be fully realized, as bits of wonderful theatrical illusion — which means it's OK if the wires show, and maybe it's good that they do..." It is definitely an instance of what Bertolt Brecht theorized as the Verfremdungseffekt, which can be translated as "alienation effect" or "estrangement effect", whose goal is to constantly remind the spectators that what they are seeing is not taken from the real world but is an artefact created from scratch.
One of the many particularities of Angels in America is that each of the eight main actors has one or several other minor roles to play: for example, the actor playing the nurse Emily also embodies the Angel of America. And in this multiple doubling of roles, the gender of each character is deliberately played upon: the actor playing Hannah, Joe's mother, also plays the part of the Rabbi. This shows the dramatist's decision to throw some light on the arbitrariness and elasticity of the traditional notions of gender categories.
It is one of my all time favourite plays and I am beyond excited to be working on it.
If you live in Winnipeg I highly recommend coming to see this show. You will not be dissapointed.
Go here to book tickets! Or call 204.477.7478.
Lisa.xo
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