LONDON (AP) – One of the landmark plays of the late 20th century, “Angels in America ” is set in a deeply divided United States haunted by premonitions of apocalypse. It still feels completely relevant.
Tony Kushner’s “gay fantasia on national themes” – revived in a sold-out production at Britain’s National Theatre – is set against the backdrop of the 1980s AIDS crisis, the “Reagan revolution” and the end of the Cold War, but doesn’t feel like a period piece.
The epic drama – made up of two plays, “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika,” running almost eight hours in all – is the London theater event of the year, with a high-profile cast that includes Academy Award nominee Andrew Garfield and Tony Award winner Nathan Lane.
The Daily Telegraph gave the production five stars on Friday, with critic Dominic Cavendish calling it “a start-to-finish sensation.” He said Garfield – an Oscar nominee this year for war movie “Hacksaw Ridge” – “gives one of the performances of his career” as Prior Walter, the young New York man diagnosed with AIDS and battling both fear and unsettling angelic visions.
The Evening Standard said the play’s “sheer imaginative reach can be exhilarating and it’s studded with devilish humor.”