Opening night of EUTCo’s take on Tony Kushner’s Angels in America sees a large audience take their seats in the Northcott Theatre. This must please the dramatic society – after all, for members of campus’ longest-running theatre company, it is no mean feat to put on a four-night show all while studying for a degree at the same time.
As my housemate and I wait for the start of the performance, we ponder the set, constructed on two levels, as a loop of U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ plays through the theatre. The performance space has been sectioned into four separate areas, offering seemingly mundane scenes in New York City in 1985 (the play’s setting) – a public park, an office, an 80s living room, with a frilly lampshade and large television set – with the exception of a square of white curtain dominating one half of the proscenium stage itself. Yet, these scenes certainly do not give us the full indication of what EUTCo are about to offer us.
Technically, EUTCo’s version of Angels in America is actually Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches – Tony Kushner wrote his multi award-garnering magnum opus in two sections. Yet, in the case of EUTCo’s show, this does not matter. Quite simply put: this production is utterly brilliant.
From minutes in, we know that Prior Walter (portrayed by Henry Smith) is dying of AIDS. Kushner’s script slows to depict how the illness gradually takes hold of Prior, sometimes humorously, often undeniably graphically. Once sartorially-dressed Prior becomes a gaunt figure in a hospital bed – the aforementioned curtained area drawn back to reveal this during the performance. We watch Louis, Prior’s boyfriend, struggle to deal with what is happening to Prior, eventually leaving as it all becomes too much. As Prior descends into loneliness and sickness, we are just as confused as he is by the myriad of erratic behaviour he witnesses – including his nurse talking in Hebrew and visits from his ancestors from centuries ago. Are they hallucinations caused by his illness, visions, or an alternative? An almost-certain hallucination, set to Lou Reed’s ‘Perfect Day’, is both beautiful and heart-breaking. Smith and McLellan both give performances of a very high standard, with Smith captivating us with his depiction of as a man suffering from an illness that, at the time, almost certainly led to an imminent death.
Yet, Angels in America is more than just a play about AIDS. It is a play reflecting the New York City of the time, with references to the environment, Reagan’s America and the upcoming Millennium all pervading the script. It is almost certainly a play about people, with several other figures, each with lives that each intersect with those of certain characters. These include Joe (Nick Cope), struggling to accept his homosexuality as a Mormon, his emotionally unstable wife Harper, hooked on Valium (Sophy Dexter), and Roy (Jason Pallari), a closeted gay lawyer also suffering from AIDS. Though the entire show mostly feels like that of a professional theatre company, Dexter and Pallari offer particularly fantastic, captivating performances.
My housemate and I leave the Northcott thrilled by EUTCo’s Angels in America. It is amusing, heart-breaking, beautiful, engaged, moving and poignant all at the same time. To think that this performance was put on by students who are also studying alongside us, rather than veterans of the acting world, is mind-boggling.
To keep up to date with EUTCo’s future performances, get a behind-the-scenes pictures and an insight in to what it takes to be part of their company, take a look at EUTCo’s facebook page here.