“Angels in America,” Written by Tony Kushner. Directed by Eric Tucker. Presented by Central Square Theater and Bedlam, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, extended through May 28.

by Michele Markarian

It is the year 1985.  “Angels in America” opens with a funeral, a rabbi (Debra Wise) presiding over the body of an elderly woman who undertook a perilous journey to America to live “in this melting pot, where nothing melted.”  The deceased is the grandmother of Louis Ironson (Zach Fike Hodges), a gay Jewish man who is too uptight to introduce his WASP boyfriend, Prior Walter (Eddie Shields), to his family.  Later that evening, Prior reveals to Louis that he has Kaposi sarcoma, a symptom of what was then called the gay cancer, or AIDS.  In another part of the city, Mormon couple Harper and Joe Pitt (Kari Buckley and Nael Nacer) are both struggling – Harper with a pill addiction and Joe with his latent homosexuality.  Joe’s boss is the nefarious lawyer (and mentor to none other than Donald Trump, a fun fact not mentioned in the play) Roy Cohn (Steven Barkhimer, in this performance). Cohn also has AIDS but wants it to be on the record that it’s liver cancer.  Cohn feels gays are effeminate and considers himself merely a man who likes to sleep with other men.  As both couples fall apart – Louis can’t handle Prior’s illness, and Harper can’t handle the fact that Joe isn’t attracted to her – new connections are forged through dreams and reality.  

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