Review: ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENIUM APPROACHES - A Miracle on EPAC Stage

Ephrata Performing Arts Center is known to be ambitious, and artistic director Edward Fernandez even more so, as well as determined to produce cutting-edge theatre in Central Pennsylvania. In some cases, a play written 20 years ago (all right, Part 1 was first produced in 1990) would hardly be cutting edge, might even be severely dated when it is heavily political and set in a particular milieu. But Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-winning ANGELS IN AMERICA is still controversial, and, more importantly, is still fresh. On the other hand, it's also 7 hours of theatre, produced in two parts on separate occasions - frequently in two different theatre seasons, or at very different times in one season.

But Ed Fernandez is, like several characters in ANGELS IN AMERICA, either inspired or crazy, and is doing ANGELS in two two-week blocks, Part 1 (MILLENIUM APPROACHES) first, and then, after a one-week break, Part 2 (PERESTROIKA), with the same cast. This is a massive acting and production burden; in fact, prior to the opening of Part 1, EPAC lost half of its cast at different points as well as its sound director, among other problems. And yet, God must protect certain fortunate directors as well as fools and children, as Part 1, MILLENIUM APPROACHES, has opened on the EPAC stage, and altogether successfully at that, even as the theatre is working on Part 2.

ANGELS is, at heart, the story of two couples - the straight Mormon couple of Joe and Harper Pitt, he a lawyer, she a desperate housewife of the first water, agoraphobic, unable to cope, and on Valium; and the gay couple of Louis Ironside and Prior Walter, neurotic Jew and AIDS patient/WASP of great ancestry. In the EPAC production, Joe and Harperplayed by EPAC veterans Andrew Kindig and Amy Carter. Both deserve great praise, especially Kindig, on whom the burden of the show really rests. Although everyone in the show has many problems, it is Joe who is the most burdened, the most conflicted, and the most confused as to how to do the right thing. Kindig accomplishes the feat of conveying Joe's crises and his pained determination to be responsible for his actions.

Carter is a fine Harper, especially in depicting Harper's gradual breakdown and her dissociations from earthly reality. Director Fernandez adds that Harper has the hardest role of the show - she "could come off as a shrew or as stoned, but [Carter] avoids that." She does avoid that, and presents to us as a completely sympathetic character, a young Mormon from Salt Lake ill equipped to handle the world in which she finds herself in New York.

Louis and Prior are played by Bob Breen and Daniel Greene, both worthy of attention. Breen properly portrays Louis' indecision and confusion, as well as his fear; Greene performs the feat of carrying off Prior's quickly-debilitating medical problems, almost appearing to drop weight as he goes throughout the various stages of the incurable problem ravaging his body. Meanwhile, Prior and Harper are hallucinating during their crises, sometimes in a peculiar folie a deux all the more remarkable for their never having met.

But the center of attention is, without a doubt, Roy Cohn, the prominent lawyer who was formerly Senator Joseph McCarthy's sidekick. Kushner's Cohn has artistic liberties taken but is nonetheless much like the reAl Cohn - self-important, with an ego the size of Alaska and not much concern for ethics, and a deeply closeted gay man who was an AIDS patient himself, but who claimed to have cancer in order to conceal his actual medical condition. At EPAC, Cohn is played by former DC actor Richard Bradbury, who has also performed in Reading. Although this is his first performance at EPAC, one may hope to see him again, and often. Bradbury channels Cohn's ego, his viciousness, his incredible loathing of gays, his greed. And Bradbury's transformation into one of America's great villains of modern history is both fascinating and completely compelling, one of the great delights of this production.

Adam Newborn, from New York, portrays Belize, a former drag queen, friend of Louis and Prior, who works as a nurse. New to the EPAC stage, his performance as Belize is perfect, his movement spot on and well worth following, both in his part as Belize and in his moments in Harper's hallucinations, the "travel agent" who takes her into her fantasy worlds, her vacations from reality.

Kristie Ohlinger, an EPAC regular, performs as a nurse, a street woman, and the Angel. It is always a pleasure to see her on stage. Other regular Elizabeth Pattey is a workhorse of multiple parts, playing the rabbi at an Ironside family funeral, Joe's mother, and the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg who comes to visit her destroyer, Roy Cohn.

Kushner's writing is some of the finest in modern theatre, and makes it worth spending three hours of show time absorbing Kushner's take on modern American history - as do the cast's performances, especially Kindig's and Bradbury's, though all are uniformly fine, which is no small directorial triumph in a show this complex and this surreal in many parts.

According to Fernandez, although the production road was rocky, the directorial effort was less so. "I concentrated on the people; I let the journey of the people in it take the play where it has to go. Kushner is like Shakespeare - the words give everything form." Bradbury would agree: "I've done some really terrific plays, but I've rarely connected to the language in a play as I have with this. The language is incredible, as is the rest of the cast here." Adds Kindig, "This show is so well-written, you don't have to find the layers in the characters. It's all there."

We agree entirely. It's worth taking out the time twice this month to catch both parts, if PERESTROIKA lives up to the first part of Kushner's magnum opus. MILLENIUM APPROACHES is at EPAC through March 17. This reviewer rarely puts the demand out, but will do so here: you must see this production. Call 717-733-7966 or visit www.ephrataperformingartscenter.com for tickets.

Photo Credit: Ephrata Performing Arts Center

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