Review: 'Angels in America' should not be missed

Tony Kushner's "Angels In America" has won 13 major awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. It was made into an HBO miniseries in 2003 and won a Golden Globe and an Emmy. In 2004 it was made into an opera. And, lucky us, it's currently being performed at the River Campus in Cape Girardeau.

Don't miss the opportunity.

Don't miss Thomas J. Statler's performance of Roy Cohn. Here's a young actor who's got it.

"Angels In America" is performed at Southeast Missouri State University's Rust Flexible Theatre -- an intimate and well-designed space on the River Campus that allows for a more natural acting style, where even the worst seat in the house allows the audience to hear soft voices and see small facial expressions. Director Rob Dillon -- set with attempting to mount one of the most famous and dramatic plays ever written -- has done an outstanding job in bringing out the urgency and intimacy of the story.

Dillon and his scenic designer, Jeffrey Luetkenhaus, gave the play the classic look of modern (or maybe post-modern) theater. Simple set pieces of the same color cover the abstract stage, which allow two scenes in different locations to play at the same time. It's quite simple, clean and ultimately fits the play perfectly.

As mentioned, Thomas Statler, playing the famous New York lawyer Roy Cohn, draws most of the attention when he's on stage. His New York accent combined with an onstage naturalness was quite a nice surprise. He seems to have the "it" factor found in professional actors.

With that said, his fellow cast members, especially Andrew Kruep, who plays Joe, the transplanted Mormon and chief clerk, struggled to stay in the moment with him. Unlike Statler, Kruep often pulled me out of the play and had me thinking about watching college students acting in a play.

I understand that locally there's been a lot of worry about the "adult content" of the play, but if you've ever been to a PG-13 movie, or have cable, don't fret. I've seen bolder acts on free television at 9 p.m., not to mention flipping the channels on daytime TV.

All this brings up an interesting point about the poignancy and almost datedness of the play. I went to college during the breakout of AIDS and Reaganomics. When I caught the play in the mid-1990s, I was stunned at its distillation of the times and its revelations about the homosexual lifestyle that buzzed around me without my knowledge. By the time it showed on HBO in 2003, it seemed more about a coming to terms with the moment, a chronicle of the messy beginnings of dignity.

An openly gay man in the early 1980s, even on my university campus, was rare. By 1993, almost 14 years after the appearance of AIDS, the play premiered on Broadway and blew down the doors of prejudice. It's now coming up on 20 years since its first performance and the sight of men kissing, having trysts in the park or coming out to their mothers is no longer the shocking issue.

Today it seems to be more about Roy Cohn.

It's the priest who's a pedophile, the cop who's a drug dealer, the church deacon who beats his children, the political leader who takes bribes. For Cohn it was his hard right-wing mentality and moralities tangled with his homosexuality. Over the years the play has distilled our society in ways I don't think Kushner could have imagined. The Roy Cohns of the world create hate, prejudice and intolerance. They create the dysfunction between parents and children, between lovers, between communities and countries.

Somehow Roy Cohn grew up to be what everyone around him despised and condemned. He lived in a world of hate and did his best to live large in that world. When he died of AIDS, he did so alone and embarrassed.

Tony Kushner saw it and "got it" by 1990. Twenty years later the rest of us are starting to "get it."

Steve Turner is a freelance movie and theater reviewer for the Southeast Missourian.