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Broadway Breakdown
ANGELS IN AMERICA (1st Episode) w/ Alex Weisman
02:42:42
A Meandering Conversation About the Great American Play
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- [00:23]
A
Hello all you theater lovers both out and prepare crowd and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of the Broadway podcast hosts. And with me today is a friend of the pod. It's been a long time coming and he's finally come back to he's millennium. He has approached to give us some perestroika. Please welcome back Mr. Alex Weissman. Hi, Alex. Hi.
- [00:56]
B
Thank you. I'm so happy to not be talking about the Golden Apple.
- [01:00]
A
That was a fun episode, though.
- [01:02]
B
It was a musical I've never thought of for a second since that day.
- [01:06]
A
For a musical that means very little.
- [01:08]
B
To either one of us or anyone.
- [01:09]
A
Maybe there's some queen out there who's like, golden apple, my God, that score the apple bottoms.
- [01:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, of course.
- [01:19]
A
Yes. That was a fun episode. I enjoyed it. But today you are coming on to talk about something a little more. Something we're both a little more passionate about. Would you say?
- [01:30]
B
Yeah.
- [01:30]
A
Yeah.
- [01:31]
B
Gay people.
- [01:32]
A
Gay people and millenniums. What are we talking about today, Alex?
- [01:36]
B
We're talking about Angels in America.
- [01:38]
A
Both part one and part two.
- [01:39]
B
Part one and in fact, part two.
- [01:41]
A
Believe it or not. Now, this is gonna be one of a handful of episodes I'll be doing on Angels in America. Minimum three, maximum five, depending on how my other two potential guests pan out.
- [01:54]
B
And I'm first.
- [01:55]
A
You're the first one that I'm recording with.
- [01:57]
B
Yeah. So we don't know that what order you're gonna put them out in.
- [02:00]
A
Yeah, I mean, you'll probably be the first episode out. Like, what do you think I am? Productive? I'm lazy as fuck.
- [02:06]
B
I don't know, I just. Well, that now I feel a lot of pressure.
- [02:10]
A
Listen, when you're with me, it's only pressure, baby. I don't know. I don't know what that means, Alex. Okay, let's just jump into it. There's no way to, like, gracefully begin a discussion on this play. I just want to sort of dive in. So we'll start with the question we ask everyone, which is how did Angels in America enter your chat?
- [02:31]
B
That is a great question. I think for most people around our age. I'm a little older than you. Fame canonically by, like, a handful. Yeah, like a really significant handful. Okay, you get me. All my handfuls are significant. I would say for most of us, we were introduced to this through them. The Mike Nichols miniseries On hbo. And I remember. Okay, here we go. So I have heart disease. Might come up as we talk about this play. So my favorite play of all time is Wit. And there was. I saw Wit, the national tour of Wit at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale starring Judith Light. And then a few years later, Mike Nichols directed Emma Thompson in Wit for hbo. It was the first of these sort of, like, great.
- [03:31]
A
Made into a TV movie specifically for HBO as well.
- [03:34]
B
Like, and very famously, Emma Thompson lost that Emmy to do, you know, Judy.
- [03:39]
A
Davis and Judy Garland.
- [03:40]
B
Judy Davis is Judy Garland. And so I watched this thinking, well, my. My reason for watching it was because it was a follow up, the Mike Nichols, the Emma Thompson Wit. But, you know, it's just the greatest thing ever made. And watching it live, it was. I believe, I think it was the first night that it aired. It was the first two, and then it was four more weeks or I don't know if it was six weeks. I can't remember.
- [04:11]
A
I can't remember.
- [04:12]
B
If I just remember, I did watch him live.
- [04:15]
A
Yes, I do believe it was. Each act was a different week.
- [04:20]
B
Yeah. So it was six weeks.
- [04:22]
A
Yeah.
- [04:22]
B
I don't know why I feel like I remember in my head that the first week was the first.
- [04:26]
A
First two it might have. Well, because that's now like what Netflix does when they want you to. When they don't want to binge watch anymore. They'll give you the first two or three episodes of a series and then drop the new episode every week.
- [04:38]
B
And remind me where this lies in the timeline of Mary Louise Parker and Weeds.
- [04:43]
A
This was before Weeds post proof. Pre Weeds.
- [04:47]
B
Okay.
- [04:48]
A
Because it came out in. We have computers on our website.
- [04:51]
B
We do have hand computers.
- [04:53]
A
We can look her up.
- [04:54]
B
I just remember being like a closeted floor 14 year old, not really knowing anything about. About AIDS. I'm not really honestly knowing anything about, like, New York City and watching this and being just like, transformed by it.
- [05:13]
A
It was December 7th through the 14th of 2003. So what it was, was it was one every night, not one every week.
- [05:20]
B
Always one every night.
- [05:21]
A
Yeah, that's what it was, honestly. Makes more sense.
- [05:24]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [05:26]
A
It's not the kind of thing where you get. Where you're willing to wait a week to see what the next act is. It's like, I'll check in again tomorrow, but not in a week.
- [05:34]
B
Because it's also not to Kushner's credit, the acts don't end on cliffhangers, per se.
- [05:40]
A
Yeah. I would say the only two acts that end where you're like, what's gonna.
- [05:46]
B
Happen would be the end of Millennium approaches.
- [05:49]
A
Yeah. I would say Act 2 and 3 of Millennium. Because Act 2 ends with the. The all skate. Because they. Sorry. Act two is the Lewis Prior breakup scene with the Harper Joe fight scene. That's how Part Act 2 of the miniseries ends. There's, like, a scene after that in the play, which is Hannah selling her house.
- [06:09]
B
I was going to say, I thought Act 2 ended with the real estate scene.
- [06:11]
A
Yeah. But they cut that scene for the miniseries, so it just ends with that. So that's. That would be a good cliffhanger for them, for television. Yes. And then, of course, the angel at the end of Millennial approaches. But I remember watching the broadcast with you the other day, and when they end Act 2 with the realtor, and it's like that super heavy dramatic music happens, and we're like. It's kind of a disconnect.
- [06:32]
B
Yeah. I've decided. Okay. So you know how they say that Ragtime is the story of a woman who learns how to belt?
- [06:42]
A
Yes.
- [06:43]
B
I think that Angels in America can be. Can be interpreted as the story of a woman who learns how to do her hair. And that woman is Hannah Pitt, 1000%. Because if I just like. And maybe it was just this, the. The national theater production that I was watching over the last few days, it's just like, those wigs. The journey of those wigs tell a real story.
- [07:07]
A
Mm.
- [07:09]
B
And in so many ways. And literally, like, what do we even talk about? But, like, the Hannah Pitt story resonated with me tremendously on this watch.
- [07:20]
A
For sure. Hannah's got a great arc, but also her hair journey is important. It's also in the script. In the script of Peris Strike.
- [07:29]
B
Well, yeah, because she becomes friends with gay people.
- [07:32]
A
Yeah. And she lives in New York. She becomes a participant of the world, not just a spectator of it, and kind of has a second childhood, a real childhood this time, but in her second half of her life in Manhattan, running free with homosexuals.
- [07:49]
B
And.
- [07:50]
A
Because the way I think the. I think the way that Kushner describes it in these stage directions, when we see her in that final scene, as she shows up, like, she now looks like a true New Yorker. So her hair is. Is done. She's wearing, like, a pashmina, probably. And, like, it's not just the national broadcast. It's also Meryl. Meryl. You see Meryl in the HBO miniseries, and she looks great. She looks like the prototype for Miranda Priestly.
- [08:15]
B
It just says Hannah is noticeably Different. She looks like a New Yorker. She's reading the New York Times.
- [08:20]
A
That's. But that's it. Not to be different. She looks like a New Yorker. But. Yeah, yeah. No, so that was. I interrupted you because of the HBO air date, but you were. You were still talking about your introduction because you saw the HBO series and then post HBO series, what did you take with you and what was your exposure to Angels post that?
- [08:43]
B
I think my takeaway from the miniseries was just from a very. On a very, like, base art level. The acting. Like, I remember being, like, blown, like, being like, wow, this is what acting can be and is. And I remember going on like a real journey with each of those actors to find all their other work. And for a long time, Angels in America was sort of this HBO show with all my favorite actors. And then it must have been in college that it was sort of like, presented to me as a piece of thought theater in terms of, like, I read the script in a queer drama class, and then there was a. A second year MFA production of Just Millennium Approaches in a black box with like, it was like eight chairs and a silk for the angel. And the whole, like, the whole thing was basically done like that. And that was the first time I saw it live. And I thought it was incredible. And then I was in Chicago for about like 11 years and the Court Theater did a big production of it of both Angels in America and Millennium and Perestroika with an extraordinary Chicago cast. And I remember seeing that and being like, wow, this is great. It's just like, I don't know what to say other than it's the best play ever written.
- [10:30]
A
Right? So, so, so, so. So let me talk about Matt Chat. And I will probably have to repeat myself every time we do an episode on Angels, guys. So sorry about it. But similar to you, I was introduced to it wholeheartedly from the HBO series, and I did not watch it when it aired. I think I caught one of the episodes while it was airing because if it aired In December of 2003, that was the winter of eighth grade for me. And so my family was very big on me, not being super censored with the media that I take, but also, like, not letting me just sort of fly free. There was. There was stuff that they're like, oh, we'll watch this with Matt. And I think my parents had really no desire to watch the miniseries, and thus I wasn't watching it. And then I caught a snippet of it, and it might have actually been the jo And Lewis scene on the beach when Patrick Wilson strips. And I was like, man. And I'm like sort of figuring out my sexuality at the time. And I. I don't think I'm quite straight because I'm finding men super attractive. So just the fact that Patrick Olsen was stripping was like, what's this, what's this, what's this, what's this? And then they were re airing it a lot for the rest of the year. And I ended up catching it like on a marathon day one day like maybe on winter break. And then I pretty much never looked back. I learned it was a play play. Probably around that same time I got my hands on the script. And I was in an acting class in high school in New York. And similar to staged Door Manor. What I loved about this acting class was the teacher was like, yeah, do whatever you want. I don't care if you're not the right age for it, blah, blah, blah, just do it. And myself and a classmate did the prior Harper hallucination threshold of revelation scene. I was terrible because I did not understand the poetry. I also did not understand like the historical elements of priority.
- [12:25]
B
Oh yeah. I just have to interject and say like, watching this when like middle school or like freshman year of high school, the. I would say 80% of it went over my head. Oh yeah.
- [12:36]
A
But that sort of. I remember when Emily Malpe was on Mutual Friend long time ago to talk about Sunday in the park with George, a musical that is her favorite musical, has been her favorite musical. Famously, if you know Emily since she was six years old and for a six year old understood an incredible amount of it. But she says, I did not understand all of it. As I got older and lived more life and understood art, I got to understand more of the show. And I think that's sort of the best kind of art is it can grab you at a young age even if you don't fully comprehend it. And as the years continue and the more you understand it, the more you love it. Yeah, it's like all of a sudden you're discovering all these facets to a work that you were just responding to on a chemical level. Now you're all of a sudden appreciating the intelligence and the cultural elements and the historical elements and all this other shit. It's the shows that like, you understand immediately at 14 and there's nothing to them beyond that. Then I'm like, any love you have past 14 is pure nostalgia. It's not you going like, oh, this show is better than People realize. But yet with Angels, yeah, it was the confidence of a 16 year old playing Prior Walter, not knowing anything about it, but just being like, I love this work and I just want to do it. And I didn't get to really attack it again until college. In our languages at the stage class, we just worked on Millennium Approaches. We didn't do Perestroika, but we read through the entire script and watched the miniseries and like just discussed it for basically two months. And then I saw the Signature Theaters production with Christian Borl and Zachary Quinto. More thoughts on that later. And then I saw the broadcast of the National Theater production and then I saw it when it came to New York. And then I rewatched Millennium Approaches with you as well as rewatching the miniseries for this podcast. And that is where I'm at. Honestly, the biggest change for me with this play is I spent all of high school and the first half of college being like, Prior Walter, dream role and graduating college and understanding I can't be Prior Walter, I can only be Lewis. And that is totally fine. Lewis is also a great part. But like, when I tell you that all of high school, I thought I had the best, most intelligent answer for a high schooler. When people would ask you like, what your dream role was, because other kids, it was like, I want to be Jekyll and Jekyll and Hyde. I wanna be Rodhame's Naida. I'm like, I wanna be Prior Walter in Angels in America. And I'm sure all of the adults around me were like, oh, this little Jewish boy doesn't understand that prior.
- [15:05]
B
So Wasp, I was so pretentious that I was like, yeah, my dream world's Laertes.
- [15:09]
A
Of course it was.
- [15:10]
B
Yeah. Well, I'm an. I, I think. Oh, something. Oh, I had not. I saw the National Theater live when it was released in America, which would have been 16. It was 2017.
- [15:26]
A
It was 2017.
- [15:27]
B
And then I did not see it in person live because I was doing Cursed Child at the time. Another two part play. And we had the literal as two. Two part plays running on Broadway at the same time. We had the. The performance for performance, same schedule.
- [15:45]
A
Yeah. And not for nothing, those two shows went up against each other at the Tonys that year. Angels had more nominations, but Harry Potter.
- [15:55]
B
Angels had one more nomination, but Harry.
- [15:57]
A
Potter won more awards. Is there bitterness on either end? Probably not. Am I going to pretend that there was so I can make Ryan Murphy's FX feud 1000%?
- [16:07]
B
I'm just saying that Imogen Heaps score was deemed ineligible. And so.
- [16:13]
A
Which is bullshit.
- [16:13]
B
We got 10 nominations and they got a score nomination, and they got 11, and we only got 10, and that's fine.
- [16:19]
A
Yeah, but you guys also got a choreography nomination, right?
- [16:22]
B
Yeah, but, yeah, they had.
- [16:25]
A
I think they had four actors and you had three nominees.
- [16:28]
B
Yeah, that's correct.
- [16:28]
A
Yes, that's. That's where it all happens. There you are, Peter.
- [16:32]
B
But we did sweep the design categories and direction.
- [16:35]
A
But also this is where I'm gonna sort of show my hand. I've talked about it a little bit on the podcast, but I'll say it again, rightfully so that you guys swept design in one direction over Angels, that production of Angels. We have a couple of submissions on the Broadway Breakdown Discord Channel from listeners, you know, stuff they want us to mention. As I've mentioned in past episodes. Guys, if you want to submit questions or comments for episodes that we cover, we have a Discord Channel. The link will be in the description box for this episode. And you can write in. I'll write in the Discord Channel, like, we're recording this episode this week. What do you want us to talk about? And people can. So that is where you got to do that. Something that somebody asked was. Someone was asking, like, what my issues particularly were with the National Theater production. Because I have said I had issues with the National Theater production. I still have issues with Andrew Garfield's prior, Walter. I.
- [17:37]
B
We watched Millennium Approaches together the other night.
- [17:39]
A
We did.
- [17:39]
B
I've since watched Perestroika.
- [17:41]
A
Yes.
- [17:42]
B
And I have come back around to my appreciation of the performance.
- [17:46]
A
I'm sure it's.
- [17:48]
B
I think it is. I think it is calculated and I think it is modulated. And I think. And one thing I will say about it is, whether you like it or not, I do think that he is in complete control of it.
- [18:01]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [18:02]
B
And I often my. My biggest. When I watch a performance, I will. My first question is like, is this actor in control or are they accidentally great?
- [18:13]
A
Yeah, that's the Sandy Dennis of it all.
- [18:16]
B
Oh, yes, Sandy Dennis. Drag her.
- [18:19]
A
I know, and I love Ms. Dennis. But, like, that's a woman who was accidentally great. She was not in control of her instrument and what made her special. She is just as many phenomenal performances as bonkers ones.
- [18:29]
B
I can't believe that you're being so rude to a woman with a glass eye.
- [18:34]
A
No, that's Sandy Duncan.
- [18:36]
B
Oh, you said Sandy Dennis.
- [18:37]
A
I said Sandy Dennis. Oscar winner of who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- [18:41]
B
I certainly thought you meant Sandy. Sandy Duncan. Oh, I totally disagree about Sandy Dennis.
- [18:47]
A
Fascinating, fascinating. As I said, Sandy Dennis has a couple of screen performances that I think are absolutely incredible. And a couple where I'm like, oh, you just. No one told you?
- [18:58]
B
No, but you know that by the time she was doing who's Afraid of Virginia Wool, she, like, already had a Tony.
- [19:05]
A
I think she had two by that point.
- [19:06]
B
Yeah, she's like. She was not, like, green.
- [19:09]
A
No, I'm not saying she was green. There's actually a section about her, or I should say she is part of a section in the William Goldman book the Season where he talks about critics, darlings, particularly certain performers, where he's like, it doesn't matter what they do, the critics will always love them. And he drags her for basically saying, like, she does weird stuff on stage and makes odd choices and odd inflections. And because no one else is doing it like that, critics see how unique it is. Equate that for just gold. He's like. And sometimes it's gold and sometimes it's bad. He's in a tizzy about it because in that particular season where he's dragging her, she had just done a play that she was supposedly bad in. And he's like, she always does this. I think it's a little more of. She does not modulate what she does for each work.
- [19:59]
B
Okay, we have one of those right now. Who do we have right now who does that? And we all think is brilliant. And I think is brilliant. But isn't. Not that Madame Jessica Hecht?
- [20:12]
A
Oh, no, no. I thought you were gonna talk about somebody else who I appreciate but don't like anymore, who also has a Tony. No, I think what Jessica Hecht does really. Well, first of all, I think Jessica Hecht is in a golden age of being cast in perfect roles for her right now, even if I don't love.
- [20:30]
B
But she makes weird kooky choices.
- [20:32]
A
But I think what Jessica Hecht does is similar to what like Barbara Harris used to do. Kooky choices. But they do feel part of the character and part of the world where.
- [20:45]
B
You don't think that Sandy Dennis and.
- [20:47]
A
I guess not in the out of Towners. No.
- [20:51]
B
So I've really only seen Sandy Dennis in obviously Virginia Woolf and then the Natalie Wood movie where the. With the. Oh, gosh, what's that movie called? It was Natalie Wood's first Oscar nomination.
- [21:07]
A
Oh, uh huh. Was. Was her first not. Well, no, I think her first was Rebel Without a Cause. Was it not?
- [21:14]
B
Oh, sorry. Then her.
- [21:15]
A
Because it was Rebel Splendor.
- [21:18]
B
Splendor in the Grass. That's what I mean.
- [21:19]
A
Oh, Sandy Dennis is in Splendor in the Grass.
- [21:20]
B
She is in Splendor in the Grass. Yeah.
- [21:22]
A
How did I forget that? Does she. Oh, does she play Warren Beatty's sister? His slutty sister who dies?
- [21:27]
B
No, she plays like friend. She plays the central, pivotal role of friend.
- [21:34]
A
Sandy Dennis is friend.
- [21:38]
B
Slutty sister who dies. No, that's my. That's usually my role.
- [21:41]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of Sandy Dennis and Barbara Harris, they share the same role, the social worker in Thousand Clowns. Sandy Dennis won the Tony Fort on Broadway and Barbara Harris did the movie. Yeah. But I don't even get here. Oh, my thing with Andrew Garfield's performance and part of it is just something that is a hurdle that I don't think he'll ever be able to overcome in a performance of Prior Walter. And I'll talk about this again with Ali Gordon. Spoiler alert, podmother Ali Gordon's coming back because she and I were texting about this the other day about Justin Kirk. And my thing about Prior Walter is he doesn't necessarily have to be played by a gay man, but I can absolutely always tell when it's being played by a straight man. Every single time.
- [22:26]
B
So you've only seen straight men?
- [22:28]
A
No, I've also watched Andrew Scott's performance at the National.
- [22:32]
B
In one scene.
- [22:33]
A
In the one scene, Yes. I watched clips of Spinella. My hope is between now and when I have my third episode. I can watch Spinella do it at the library. I have to carve out two full days to watch it. No, I watched a. Who was my fourth priority?
- [22:50]
B
Christian Borrell.
- [22:51]
A
I saw Christian Borrell, Justin Kirk, Andrew Garfield. I can. There was no. There was a fourth one. There was a fourth one. Somebody in Boston when I was at Emerson. It's just there's something about the DNA of Prior. And if you read the oral history of the World Only Spins Forward. They talk about this of the. I like to use this word a lot. I know it bothers some people, but the faggotry that is Prior, there is a performative element of him that is false. Because no one. No one is. Comes out of the womb covered in glitter, you know, in high heels. Fabulous. It's an armor for a lot of people, especially at that time. But it is also part of your DNA in a lot of ways. It's performative, yet it is still part of. You say what you want to say. Okay.
- [23:39]
B
What the thing that I heard for the first time, this rewatch was that Prior is a retired drag queen.
- [23:47]
A
Yes.
- [23:48]
B
And what I. What I saw in this rewatch is the sicker that he got, the weaker he got, the more stripped away that Persona was. And it really felt like I was watching Laganja Estranga in Millennium Approaches and then sort of like Jinx Monsoon somewhere in the middle. And then by the end, it was Bob the Drag Queen. Like, it really was a person who was used to literally putting on this Persona on stage and off stage and seeing, which is why I was like, this person's in control of this performance. That it is effortful. I think it was intentionally effortful so that the sicker, the weaker that he got, he didn't have the energy and that the breakdown of that Persona. That being said, a lot of that is in the writing. A lot of the responses, all the characters to Prior are like, you're shouting, you're yelling, you're screaming, you're hamming. It's abrasive root like it is justified in the text. And I do think that there's an element of this, of not being American.
- [25:17]
A
Well, that's my issue with the production. And we can talk about that in a second. Just to kind of move off of Andrew for a second, because Andrew is also tied to Kirk, who I still love as Prior, but he has his things for me. Like, whereas Garfield does go femme and I don't. And it. And I can just sort of Kirk.
- [25:36]
B
If I remember, and I haven't seen.
- [25:37]
A
That, he's not very.
- [25:38]
B
Doesn't go fem it up very much at all.
- [25:39]
A
Very little. Very little. He comes off much more like impish straight boy than effeminate gay man. He. He gets a lot of the humor down in the miniseries, but not the. The campiness. And I felt with Garfield, it just felt a bit like. And part of it is the Britishness of it all. And he talks about in interviews and in the book of. A lot of his training was like going to drag shows and watching Drag Race. And I'm like, I love you know that you. He did it with his whole heart. I'm not saying that there was any mal. Intent. So, like, some things don't connect. And part of it is that he's not American. Part of it is that he's just genuinely not gay, or at least that kind of gay when.
- [26:25]
B
And again, I. I also agree, like, we're here to talk about the play and not this production, but.
- [26:29]
A
But it's their own.
- [26:31]
B
When was last time you saw Paris is burning probably like six months ago. Andrew Garfield's Prior fits that documentary like that his prior is in Paris is burning. And for. And that I, you know, that's a, to me interesting, valid choice.
- [26:53]
A
I think that his attitude towards playing Prior is in Paris is burning. The execution for me is not. Does that make sense?
- [27:03]
B
Sure. You saw it live too.
- [27:05]
A
I did.
- [27:06]
B
You felt the same way live.
- [27:07]
A
I did.
- [27:09]
B
Watching this re this capture, I was like, woof, this is big. These performances are all big. And then I was like, oh, right, right, right. I'm watching a pro shot.
- [27:19]
A
The National Theater production improved for me live for two reasons. One was Lee Pace was Joe instead of Russell Tovey and Lee was better in the role. Just in so many ways. Lee looks more like how Joe should look and has more of that again in his DNA. It's like there's less of an effort to make it happen. The other thing that happened between the broadcast and Broadway was that the play was being performed for a New York audience and thus a lot more of the humor came out because audiences understood the humor. And so the cast shifted a little bit their attitude on the material and hit the punchlines a bit stronger than they did in the broadcast. I still had my issues. It went from being like a 6 out of 10 for me on the broadcast to like a 7 out of 10 for me live. I was like, this is better. And I went from hating Andrew in the broadcast to just very much disliking his performance live. But it was a lot of those issues for me were still there. Incidentally, the straight actor who I saw also do it, who I thought was more successful was Borrel in Signature because Borrel did a lot of the stuff that you're talking about with Garfield of the effort and the anger and the just disillusionment and just getting so tired as the play continues. But there was a bit of a. There was a focus to the way Borrell portrayed it. Like all of his anger, he could pinpoint who he wanted to yell at and why. And every element of his physicality, there was a, there was a femininity to it. But it wasn't. I hate to say words like overt because that sounds like inner homophobia. And I don't mean that just oh, just admit it.
- [29:02]
B
You're a self loathing homosexual.
- [29:03]
A
I'm a self loathing queer. But no, it's certain things like the way you would cross your leg or you put, put your hand to your chest. Just certain things where it's. It what it is. Is the allowance of the. I guess the instinct, physical instinct to do things of. Like, I've talked. Maybe I've talked about this before when I was in high school and I had come out and, like, I come from a liberal Jewish New York family, so it was not a hardship for me to come out. But there are still aggressions, micro and macro. And one was like, I would pontificate and my hand would sort of flop, and my mom or my dad would sort of, like, not slap, like, tip my hand back up to keep me from having the limp wrist. That is also just a Jewish thing of, like, Jewish people are survivors. And I will do anything to make sure my child survives. So, like, I don't want him walking down a dark street at night with a limp wrist because that's gonna get someone to beat him up, which I absolutely understand. But it is sort of allowing yourself in the role of Prior or Lewis to, like, just let the limpress go and happen. Whereas there are other people based on, you know, maybe who they are in life or the walks of life they had. It's more like, oh, I have to make myself do Olympus now. Which I never used to do. And it's Olymparist. Is Olymprist. But sometimes you can just tell when something is more in the DNA, when something is learned. It's like there is a specific choreographer who may or may not have a Tony. I don't want to go too far into detail, but they've done a show or two about high schoolers, and you watch their choreography, and it's not bad, but you're like, it kind of looks like an alien came to Earth, observed real high schoolers and how they dance, wrote it down in a journal and tried to recreate it for their home planet. It's like, it's not technically wrong, but something is off. And that's making me sound a lot more harsh to people like Borel and Garfield. I don't mean to. It's just sometimes it's just one of those things. And maybe it's my own projection. I feel like we all are guilty of that, but that is sort of how I feel. Felt with both of them, but less so with Boral.
- [31:01]
B
I have a question.
- [31:02]
A
Yes?
- [31:02]
B
How? Because I didn't see. I didn't see that signature production. How did Boral's prior compare to his Marvin?
- [31:11]
A
I thought his prior was better than his Marvin because his Marvin. Well, I had issues with that falsetto's revival in general. He was able to channel the anger in his Marvin. But I feel like because Marvin is ultimately such a killjoy half the time in Falsettos that.
- [31:29]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's more of a relationship between Marvin and Lewis.
- [31:32]
A
Yeah. Marvin is like all the worst parts of Lewis and Jo, honestly. And I just feel like Borrell wasn't. Borrel was able to fulfill the prescription of Prior's take me or leave me. Like, this is who I am without making it like a banner of just sort of by existing. That was the protest and then his Marvin. I just. I felt like all he could play was the rage. And all of the things that don't necessarily make Marvin redeeming but multifaceted sort of got erased. Yeah. Incidentally, I feel now that I'm talking about Falsettos, I would love to have seen Brandon Uranowitz's Lewis or even Andrew Garfield's Prior. I mean, Andrew's a little too, like, tall and statuesque, but like just someone like Andrew who has sort of a femininity about him.
- [32:33]
B
Andrew Rannells, you mean?
- [32:34]
A
Did I say Andrew Garfield?
- [32:35]
B
You did Andrew. You have seen Andrew Garfield.
- [32:38]
A
Andrew Rannells is one.
- [32:39]
B
Brandon Uranowitz has played Lewis, didn't he?
- [32:41]
A
Did he?
- [32:42]
B
Where in D.C. i think.
- [32:45]
A
I wish I could have seen it.
- [32:47]
B
Am I wrong? And I'm googling you might be wrong.
- [32:49]
A
So you look up what you need to look up about Brandon Uranowitz. And while you do that, let's take a break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. And we back. So Alex has looked up where Brandon Uranowitz played Lewis in Angels in America.
- [33:17]
B
And surprise, it wasn't a production. It was the. It was a virtual. Like scenes from Angels in America during COVID with like 17 people, including 2020 Lois Smith as Harper and 2020 Glenn Close as Roy Cohn. For in various scenes, like, there were various people playing various roles.
- [33:39]
A
2020 Glenn Close as Roy Cohn is.
- [33:41]
B
Do you want to see a picture?
- [33:42]
A
Sure.
- [33:43]
B
It's not dissimilar to what she looked like in the Deliverance.
- [33:49]
A
Oh my.
- [33:50]
B
You know, well, wow. And like Jeremy O. Harris was Belize and wow. This looked cool.
- [33:56]
A
That is. That. That is a fun one. I. Yeah. Just thinking back now about the signature Angels, because it was. It was definitely a half and half cast for me, incidentally, as I. As I said, my hate speech against straight actors playing gay roles, which is not real. But that's just my little joke there. You know who was Belize in that signature production?
- [34:22]
B
Billy Porter.
- [34:23]
A
Yes. And I thought he was very unsuccessful as Belize. And so the irony is not lost on me that after I talked about the DNA of Prior and we had a straight actor playing Prior in that production who I thought was relatively successful, we did have a queer actor playing Belize who I thought was unsuccessful. And I think that the best Belize is still. Jeffrey. Jeffrey. Right. Who is straight. But just. Yeah, just watch the miniseries. You cannot deny that performance. It's just too fucking good.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah.
- [34:53]
A
So actually we haven't even done this part yet. Alex.
- [34:56]
B
Yeah, I'm Alex.
- [34:59]
A
For the uncultured fucks. Basic bullet points. What is Angels in America about? What's the plot?
- [35:08]
B
Okay, good luck.
- [35:10]
A
You have 30 minutes.
- [35:11]
B
Angels in America is a gay fantasia on national themes. Obviously.
- [35:16]
A
Done. That's it.
- [35:18]
B
Angels in America is the story of a group of folks in America around 1985. They come from different religions, they come from different sexualities, and they're sort of all grappling with the AIDS epidemic, literally and specifically, but also as a metaphor for the crumbling of the American empire and then sort of Earth.
- [35:54]
A
Yeah.
- [35:55]
B
Like the end of the world. As with the question of like, is. Is. Is the AIDS epidemic the first harbinger of the end of the world? It's a really abstract reading of it and I don't know if that's valid.
- [36:09]
A
No, I think it is valid because the whole. Because Perestroika.
- [36:12]
B
Yeah.
- [36:12]
A
The title of a Part two is about sort of the rebuilding and reconfiguration of a system once it's all been sort of crashed down.
- [36:20]
B
I mean, I can't really do. I could give you a point by point plot summation if you have 90 minutes.
- [36:26]
A
Sure. Well, let's see if we can try to make it a little less than that. Okay, so we have our. I would say we have our two.
- [36:32]
B
Main gay men, Lewis and Prior.
- [36:35]
A
Yes.
- [36:36]
B
And they are at a funeral for Louis's grandmother where Prior reveals to his partner of five years, Louis, that he has aids.
- [36:46]
A
Yes.
- [36:46]
B
He's got a lesion. And Lewis freaks out.
- [36:51]
A
It's the fall of 85, so, like, it's. It is a death sentence at this point.
- [36:57]
B
Their plot sort of goes on a. Like each of these eight characters has their own journey. Lewis's journey is like, how do I save myself in the face of the destruction of my. The person I love.
- [37:14]
A
Yes.
- [37:16]
B
And then Prior's journey is like, how do I survive?
- [37:22]
A
Full stop subplot.
- [37:24]
B
My person that I love has abandoned me in my time of need and in my sickness. I am being visited by an angel who is trying to communicate with me that I'm the prophet that will save the world. End the world.
- [37:44]
A
Save the world by pausing humanity, I guess, is the way I would describe it. We'll talk a bit more about that eventually. But. Yeah. And then Lewis runs off and meets Joe. Cause Joe is a clerk at an appellant court where Lewis is the office temp.
- [38:04]
B
Like Mr. Coffee changes the coffee filters. Exactly as he as is weaponized against him later.
- [38:11]
A
Yes. Joe is a Mormon. He's been living in New York, in Brooklyn with his wife Harper for about like four or five years now, I think.
- [38:18]
B
Three.
- [38:19]
A
Three years. Three years. Joe is a homosexual deeply in the closet. His wife Harper is addicted to Valium and has hallucinations on her Valium. And through the. How to say, through the feng shui of the atoms of the universe, characters sometimes mix with each other in this world and in Limbo, which is a.
- [38:52]
B
Very popular Japanese fiction trope. Very murakami.
- [38:59]
A
Very murakami. But through that, a lot of truths are revealed that then affect the real world. For example, the Harper Pryor hallucination dream scene.
- [39:10]
B
Threshold of revelation.
- [39:11]
A
Yes. Two major truths are revealed to both of them. That allows them to go back into the world and take care of. Not take care of, but, you know, address business as prior. And Lewis's relationship deteriorates and Lewis leaves Harper and Joe's relationship deteriorates and Lewis and Joe hook up. And Joe comes out to his mother drunk on the phone back in Utah, and she responds to her son telling her that he's gay by selling her house and going straight to the city. And on top of all this, we've got Roy Cohn.
- [39:46]
B
Got Roy Cohn, who was Kushner's inciting incident, for writing the play.
- [39:51]
A
Yes.
- [39:52]
B
Well, so he set out to write a play about Roy Cohn.
- [39:56]
A
What? So what had happened was Oscar Eustace met Tony Kushner through his play Bright Room called Day. And they remained very close. And Oscar Eustace was a big dramaturg and he.
- [40:10]
B
Which is a play that fictionalizes a lot of historical figures.
- [40:13]
A
Yes, exactly. It is in the framework of the rise of the Nazi party, but with fictional characters, historical characters. It's very rack time that way. Eustace, according to World Only spins forward, was brought out to San Francisco to work at the Eureka Theatre Company. And in the late 80s, everyone every like Progressive Theater wanted to do Normal Heart because it was the only play addressing the AIDS crisis, and Eureka couldn't get the rights to it. I think Mark Taperform got it instead, something like that. And their response was, well, fuck it. We'll do our own AIDS play. And so Oscar brought Kushner along and was like, you're gonna write the play. And he said, here's what you have to do, though, because Bright Room Call Day is so long. You have to promise me that this play will be two and a half hours and there will be songs. And Kushner fails on both of those things.
- [41:09]
B
Both of those.
- [41:10]
A
There are. There are no songs in Angels, and it is not two and a half hours. But he. He came up with the title before he came up with anything. And then, I guess Roy was the first character he came to be. And there's a. Do you know the words on Roy Cohn's patch in the AIDS quilt?
- [41:26]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [41:29]
A
It's Roy Cohn. For those of you who don't know the AIDS quilt, it was, you know, patching names and birth and death dates of everyone who had perished from aids. And Roy Cohn's patch said, roy Cohn, bully, coward, victim.
- [41:42]
B
Yeah.
- [41:42]
A
Which is just a very concise and very poetic. It's not so briquet, but something like that. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's. Roy Cohn is the last major character of our principles. And I know that this. There it is. Yep. I know that is something you want to talk about. Alex is the Roy cone of it all. And I'm. I'm guessing also like, the Ethel Rosenberg of it all.
- [42:09]
B
The reason I want to talk about Roy Cohn. I was, as I was re. Watching this play over the last few days, it hit me in a way, unfortunately, that it didn't ten years ago, eight years ago, whenever. Because it really felt like we're like, exactly back in this moment.
- [42:31]
A
Yep.
- [42:31]
B
And I'm. And as we now know from the Academy Award nominated film the Apprentice, Roy Cohn was a huge influence on Donald Trump. And as I was watching these scenes, especially the scenes with Roy and Joe and Millennium approaches, you see Trump. I mean, you see the same tactics of, like, unending doting and affection, weaponizing the faults of your enemy, finding a common enemy, and a true, genuine disregard for the law. We see it where. When Joe is realizing that Roy.
- [43:24]
A
Would.
- [43:24]
B
Like, call the judge socially on the trials that he was working on and how grossly illegal that was, and. And Roy, with, like, earnest Deniability was like, so what? It doesn't matter. I was right. And that is what it's like. It is terrifying that we are. I have found myself being like, oh, so many things now make sense of. Like, this is the person. And I don't know if I'm talking about Trump or Cohn or both, but like, genuinely believes that they are unambiguously above the law and can justify it to themselves and can justify it to the people who they wield their influence over. And watching this play in 2025.
- [44:23]
A
It.
- [44:24]
B
Is scarier than it was in 2018 because it is.
- [44:30]
A
We're.
- [44:30]
B
We're right back there, and I. The scene in Perestroika with. With Belize and Louis about America. About America.
- [44:42]
A
It's just Belize and Pryor have gone to scope out Joe now that they know that Lewis is banging him. And Belize realizes that Joe knows Roy Cohn because Belize is Roy Cohn's nurse. Because Roy Cohn, like Prior, has AIDS and is dying way faster than Prior is, partly due to his refusal to acknowledge that that's what he has. When Roy is given his diagnosis, he tells his doctor, no, no, I have liver cancer. And that is what we're telling everybody. Because Roy Cohn says only homosexuals get aids. And I'm not a homosexual, because a homosexual can't do anything in this country, and I can.
- [45:22]
B
So this line, this, like, gutted me. I hate America, Lewis. I hate this country. It's just big ideas and stories and people dying and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word free to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital. I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, Louis. That's hard enough. I don't have to love it. And 1013, the room of the hospital is the room that Roy Cohen is in.
- [46:04]
A
Yes. It's just.
- [46:08]
B
40 years ago thinking that America, like the end of the American empire, and now it just, like, really feels like we're there.
- [46:16]
A
Yeah. The thing they talk about this in World only spins forward of just how the play hits differently depending on where we're at. And when the play was being written, we were still towards the end of the Reagan years and Bush Sr. Was on the horizon to become president. It just sort of looked like, you know, conservatism. Conservatism forever. And by the time the play finally premiered, On Broadway, we were in the first year of the Clinton administration.
- [46:44]
B
Yeah.
- [46:46]
A
And when the. When the miniseries happened, we were with Dubya and post 9 11. And so there was a whole new attitude about it of, like, uns, like, with Clinton, with Reagan and Bush, it was anger and protest. With Clinton, it was Hope. With Bush Jr. It was uncertainty. And then it. And then when it was at signature, it was Obama, and it was sort of hope again. And, like, this is a period piece that we love because it's brilliantly written, but, like, we can sort of look beyond it now. And then when it came back in 2018, it was anger again. And now because we are, like, fresh into this new hell, it is uncertainty, fear, and anger all wrapped into one. At least when I came back to it this time.
- [47:31]
B
I mean, what. Well, watching. Well, I remember reading the Harris, the Mike Nichols biography written by Mark Harris, who is Tony Kushner's husband. And when they talk about it, I can't remember who it is, and I don't have the book with me, but there is. There was, like, only one major creative other than Kushner. Or maybe it was Kushner who made that. That was gay.
- [47:59]
A
Mm.
- [48:00]
B
Mike Nichols is not gay. None of the actors were gay. And I do think you watch that miniseries still. It is not very gay.
- [48:09]
A
No.
- [48:09]
B
And it is Angels in America, and it's not very gay. And that sort of sucks. Watching it with a contemporary lens. I do think that what is most potent about it right now, more so than after 9, 11, even more so. Way, way, way more so than 10 years ago, is we're seeing these attacks on the trans community, and we are two cisgendered gay men, but the trans queer community are our friends, families, allies, lovers, everything. And now, more than ever, or perhaps for the first time since this play was written, we are seeing a queer community being villainized, attacked, so politically weaponized in a way that the, you know, Trump. What Trump is doing to the trans community has echoes of what Reagan did to the. To the gay community.
- [49:18]
A
Absolutely.
- [49:18]
B
And that. And. And it's just terrifying.
- [49:24]
A
The thing about the play. What. It's what. I think what Kushner gets on really well is how each character basically allows themselves to get out of bed and walk the streets. And I'm connecting this to the political. Because there. There's a way of self. We all kind of have the instinct of self preservation. Right. Of, like. Of not only how do we better ourselves, but just, like, how do we survive every day.
- [49:57]
B
Yeah. Which is. Which is right now. For us two white CIS gay men. A privilege. Yes, the power. The privilege of being able to simply self preserve.
- [50:10]
A
Yep. Two white cisgender men living in New York City exit.
- [50:16]
B
Right.
- [50:16]
A
Yes, there is a privilege of I have to self preserve. But also there is a sense of, you know, of, of progressing ourselves and helping others as well as we can. It's very much plain going down. Put the mask on yourself before you give it to somebody else. Because in order to be someone's, you know, support system, you have to have everything in place to support them. As we see with someone like Lewis, who has absolutely no sturdiness within him, so he can't be prior. Support system. Right. But so we see someone like Joe. I think I'm thinking about like sort of the Joe Louis fallout scene in part two.
- [50:56]
B
Yeah. With one of my favorite lines of the whole play, which is just leave me alone. I want to lie here and bleed for a while.
- [51:02]
A
Yep.
- [51:03]
B
I literally, I was watching with my boyfriend this morning and I was like, that's me.
- [51:07]
A
But so Joe, like, so Joe is the, is the clerk of one of the Judges of this 2nd Circuit Court and you know, a supremely conservative Republican court. And when Lewis learns from Belize that not only. It's all intermingled. Right. Like Joe finds out that. Lewis finds out that Joe voted for Reagan. He finds out that Joe is a Mormon.
- [51:36]
B
Oh.
- [51:37]
A
And Republican and like kind of conservative. But he's like, but he's a nice guy. Like, he sees, he sees the person, he spends time with the person, he's like, he, he's a nice enough guy. And then finds out from Belize, gets the rug pulled out from under him. Joe is very much in cahoots with Roy Cohn, one of the most evil men ever. And that sends Lewis out on a fact finding mission. Exactly. Because he realizes he's basically just been on a three week fuckfest with Joe. And while Joe like isn't like, Joe isn't gonna kick the crutch out from Tiny Tim, but he isn't a good person.
- [52:09]
B
Well, it's.
- [52:10]
A
He's a sweet person.
- [52:11]
B
And his response, especially the way as played by Russell Toby of like, stop this, you're hurting me. It really feels like when you call someone rightfully a racist or a bigot and they're like, stop bullying me.
- [52:23]
A
Yeah.
- [52:23]
B
It's like, no, fuck off, you are being racist. You're a racist.
- [52:27]
A
Well, so here. But so here's the thing. Lewis is, in my opinion, on the right side of most moral and historical issues. Lewis also sucks as A human and.
- [52:40]
B
Does well because of what he did to Prior. Like, so he loses. That's what's so genius.
- [52:44]
A
He loses so much. He loses so much more. But here's what I mean is, like, so a lot of people, when we talk about, you know, political, ideological differences and we. There's a lot of talk of, like, you, ha. You can't always look at the abstract. You have to look at the humane. Like, how. How can you say that this whole group of people are villains? Do you know a single queer person who is like this? And usually the answer is no. It's like, great. Get to know the person and you're going to see the situation differently. And Joe is someone who sees America and the law and people sort of like in the abstract. And Lewis is sort of the first queer person that he gets to know on a human level. And it could possibly change his mind, except that Lewis is. Louis Lewis can only really see the progressive in the abstract. He is a big believer in all things progressive from a distance. When you see it from the greater lens, once he's up close, once he sees the human elements, it scares him and he flees. And that is sort of an interesting swap because usually it's the opposite. Usually it's people who have progressive ideals. It's because of their exposure and their submersion in the diversity of the world.
- [53:54]
B
Yeah, but I think that.
- [53:55]
A
What.
- [53:56]
B
I think that it goes a step further in this scene, because it isn't. He isn't hypoth. Like, Joe isn't hypothetically bad. He isn't abstractly against these ideas. He's literally. His names are literally on the documents creating the laws that are killing people.
- [54:14]
A
Yeah, but when he. When he's defending himself about it, he is defending himself by viewing it in the abstract through the clear eyes of the law. That is how he's able to justify it. That is what the scene does. And that doesn't make Joe Roy Cohn, because Joe is not someone who would look at someone dying and go, you deserve it. He's look, he's like almost kind of. It's its own form of sociopathy in a way, because he's not viewing it as people. He's viewing it from a structure, like from a textbook definition. But he does that with everything. He does that with his own wife. He doesn't. He does not connect with her and who she is in this moment. We have to get to Harper at some point because I want to talk about Harper, but, you know, he does. He's always sort of talking at her, not to her. Right. Lewis is the first person he actually connects to. And I would argue it's because Lewis catches him at the exact right moment of vulnerability and Jo is able to sort of glob onto that. People also go where the warmth is. They go where they can feel safe and unpressured. And that's why he has his relationship with Roy for so long until Roy turns on him. And that's why he's with Lewis until Lewis turns on him.
- [55:29]
B
Do you think that Lewis ever.
- [55:36]
A
Really.
- [55:36]
B
Develops feelings for Joe?
- [55:38]
A
No, I don't. I think that Lewis, because Joe says, I love you and I don't think. And I think that he means it, but I don't think it's true. Correct.
- [55:48]
B
He thinks it's true.
- [55:49]
A
Yes. He is feeling like Joe is profoundly unhappy and profoundly numb for so much of Millennium approaches, probably almost all of it. He has two moments of vulnerability. One is when he calls his mom drunk on the phone and when he asks when he basically picks up Lewis in the park at the end of part one. Everything else is a step towards that moment of vulnerability. And then for three weeks in this bubble of, you know, sex and intimacy, he's able to relax for the first time and he's able to do physically what he's always wanted to do, which is be with a man. And in that haze of, of joy and that tunnel vision of getting what he wants, the euphoria he is feeling, he is mistaking for love.
- [56:40]
B
Well, right. It's like when. It's like when all you eat is nonfat cottage cheese and non fat cottage cheese and you go to a buffet and you get a scoop of the cottage cheese and you know that that shit is 4%. And you put that 4% cottage cheese in your mouth for the first time in years and you're like, this is full fat cottage cheese. This is what I really love. But I have to keep myself in the cottage cheese closet and keep eating the non fat cottage cheese. Anyway.
- [57:07]
A
Anyway, that's just the thing about me. I've never had cottage cheese. But no, it's. But. So yeah, you asked like. No. Joe thinks he loves Louis, but he doesn't. He doesn't know anything about Louis and Lewis doesn't know.
- [57:20]
B
You've never had cottage cheese?
- [57:22]
A
No.
- [57:22]
B
Aren't you Jewish?
- [57:23]
A
Yes, I'm Jewish. Like Lewis is Jewish. I use it as a, as a playing card. I don't actually do any of the other stuff. Lewis and I both have never been bar mitzvahed.
- [57:35]
B
I was Bar mitzvahed. My theme was Broadway. My table was Rent.
- [57:39]
A
That tracks for you. But with. Yeah, like, the thing about Joe is, like, Joe could be a good person if he woke up, right? He.
- [57:53]
B
What do you mean, woke up?
- [57:54]
A
Like, woke up to himself and to the world around him. He only sees what he wants for most of the play. And there are a couple of times when he gets sort of a rude awakening. But he. You wonder if he's getting the right lessons from it.
- [58:10]
B
Do you think that he comes out to Roy? So Roy is interpreting that scene.
- [58:21]
A
Which scene are we talking about? When he. When he's in Roy's. Roy's hospital room?
- [58:25]
B
Yeah. He's coming out to Roy as a father figure, not as a fellow homosexual.
- [58:33]
A
Yes.
- [58:34]
B
And Roy interprets it as him. As Joe's coming out to him as an accusation of his own homosexuality.
- [58:41]
A
That is how I've always interpreted it. I'm sure there's other.
- [58:44]
B
That is how I interpreted it, too, especially this time. And what you see is the daddy issue there, which, which, which we see with Roy in the restaurant scene in Act 1 of the millennium approaches, which, you know, we also can.
- [59:07]
A
There's so much to talk about.
- [59:08]
B
Drawback to the Trump of it all, the daddy issues, for sure.
- [59:10]
A
The thing of. The thing about Joe is the two times in Millennium, like, when we see Joe in Millennium, we see the pain and we see the confusion and we see the naivete. Right. Because he takes Roy at face value. And all he sees with Roy is a brilliant lawyer who's risen in the ranks and, you know, believes in Joe and America. And you're. You'll be a true patriot.
- [59:32]
B
Which is why it breaks his heart the first time he learns that Roy's breaking the law.
- [59:36]
A
Yes. Well, when he. Because when he finds out that Roy wants him to move to Washington and serve in the Justice Department, he's like, oh, my God, a vote of confidence. I'm finally moving up in the world. Then when he has that dinner with Roy and Roy's cohort and finds out that Roy is facing disbarment because he stole money from a client. Did you know, did this illegal thing. Joe's ME response is like, well, I'm sure you, you know, didn't realize what you were doing at the time because you would never do something criminal. Just like fucking fully says it to his face and continues to. To believe that and then doesn't. And then when, you know, he and Roy battle out again because the Roy. Joe breaks Roy's heart twice. Once in Millennium and once in perestroika, because he's grappling in Millennium to go to Washington, his wife Harper, doesn't want to move. They're in a bad place. Joe is in a confused state and ultimately goes to Roy at the end of Millennium and says, I can't go to Washington. I'm so sorry. Thank you for believing in me. But, like, it's just the timing doesn't work out, and Roy turns on him immediately. He thinks he's going to hear an understanding father tell him. You're like, I get it. You know, maybe sometime in the future. And it's like. And Roy's like, no, I wanted you in the Justice Department to be my fucking lap dog. What do you mean, no, idiot. This is what it takes to be great. Fuck you. But still, he ties himself to Roy and perestroika, to the bitter end. It might be a little afraid, but he's not fully severed once he hears this.
- [61:02]
B
Yeah.
- [61:03]
A
You know, it's. It's the idea. That's what I mean when I'm saying, like, these rude awakenings that Joe doesn't fully grapple with. The only thing that kind of sort of hits him in the end is when Harper leaves.
- [61:18]
B
And it's because she leaves the full stop leave.
- [61:21]
A
The full stop, the full stop leave.
- [61:23]
B
Where she gives him the volume, says, go, get lost.
- [61:25]
A
Yeah. When he appeals to her and cries and says, you're the only one who loves me. You've only one who's ever loved me. I've done so many terrible things. But, like, please stay. And she just looks at him and then slaps him across the face.
- [61:36]
B
She goes, it's that bad?
- [61:37]
A
First she says, did you feel that? Did that hurt? Yeah. Remember that, please. And then he's like, okay, well, you know, go and call. You should call. And she goes, nope, probably never again. That's how bad. And I think it's the absolute confidence and finality with which she says it all and leaves after, like, being in this hazy despair for so long that he realizes just how much he hurt her and how much he actually does. Not necessarily needs to change, but fucking grow up, you know? And the movie gives him a little more grace with his. Because they add that scene with him and Hannah on the street. You don't see what I'm talking about.
- [62:21]
B
I don't.
- [62:23]
A
So in the play.
- [62:24]
B
Yeah.
- [62:25]
A
So they talk about this in World only spins forward. How Kushner, overall is very kind to all the characters except for Joe.
- [62:34]
B
Yeah.
- [62:35]
A
And basically gives Jo the shit end of the stick when the play is over.
- [62:39]
B
And they tried to remedy that in the miniseries. Wait, there is a Hannah Jo scene?
- [62:44]
A
Not the one I'm about to talk about.
- [62:45]
B
Okay, so sorry.
- [62:46]
A
Parasroika, first of all, is the play that continually has gotten fucked with since it premiered. Millennium Approaches, pretty much since, I would say they premiered at the Mark Taper Forum has been left untouched. It premiered at Eureka, they did workshops, then it went to national, then went to Mark Taper and trims here and there, but 98% of that play has remained untouched. Perestroika has been fucked with all the time because there's always stuff to cut, always stuff to move around. Two things that Kushner did. One is when the play had its revival at Signature, he added a scene in Perestroika between Roy Cohn, the ghost of Roy Cohn, and Joe after Roy has.
- [63:25]
B
Oh, that is in the NTLive.
- [63:27]
A
Yes. And that's in the now the newly published script. Also, it's never quite clear if it's truly the ghost of Roy, if it's a vision that Joe is having. Anyway, point is, in the HBO miniseries, after Harper has left and Hannah has done her thing with Prior, Jo is heading to work and Hannah is heading to, I guess, the Mormon Center. And they. They end up running into each other on the street corner as this, like, Mormon group is singing hymns. And they sort of exchange pleasantries. And Hannah says, you know, oh, where's Harper? And Joe's like, she's gone. And she's like, okay, I'm sure she'll be fine. And he says, yep, yep, yep. And there's a beat, and she says, so I'll make supper tonight. And Joe kind of has a moment where he's about to cry, and she just touches his face. She goes, I'll try to wait up for you. And that's the end of the scene. And it's, you know, it's not like we're gonna make it after all, but it's a. It's the first moment of actual affection between the two of them. And it shows you that Harper's leaving and everything that has transpired has actually affected Jo. And maybe he'll be open and live a healthier life for him at some point, or maybe not. But at the very least, you know that he has taken away something from this. And if he's living with Hannah now, who fully has transformed from this experience, then he has to have progressed in some small way.
- [64:55]
B
But he's not at the festive fountain.
- [64:58]
A
At the end Nor could he be. I also do love the idea that Lewis and Hannah Pitt are friends five years later and Joe's not a part of it.
- [65:07]
B
Yeah. I was actually thinking about how Lewis and Prior are friends five years later.
- [65:13]
A
How Lewis is friends with any of them, I think speaks volumes about that group. And empathy and forgiveness, but not forgetting. Forgive it. Forgiving, but not forgetting. Or forgetting and not forgiving. Who's just. I think that Prior forgives but doesn't forget. And I think that Belize doesn't forget or forgive. And I think that Hannah forgets but doesn't forgive. Aha.
- [65:37]
B
Yeah, I would have to.
- [65:39]
A
I'm also talking out of my butt right now. But something along those lines. We can talk about all of that. And specifically, I want to talk about Harper next. But before we talk about Harper, let us take. I know. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow collar. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. And we back. So Harper Pitt, Joe's wife.
- [66:11]
B
One of the things that I think is so brilliant about this play is how fast we just jump into the action of it. Like, we actually don't get very much introduction to each of these characters. We're just sort of like, we know who they are within 15 seconds.
- [66:31]
A
Yeah.
- [66:32]
B
It's such brilliant writing. And, like, when we first meet Harper, it's like we never, like, really know what is Harper's status quo. We just see her Valiumed out.
- [66:48]
A
And alone at home in the middle of the day. So I think, like, those details alone are really. Are all you really need to know to, like, get an immediate impression of her.
- [66:57]
B
Part of me wants to see a production of Angels in America where the physical stage vocabulary for the angel is the same as the physical vocabulary for Mr. Lies. Like, is Mr. Lies, Harper's angel? And I don't know. I haven't literally. This is first thoughts, so I haven't. I'm sure that if I talked about this for half an hour, I would talk myself out of it. But that's just the thing coming to my head right now. We're like, right. We are. There are so many obvious parts of this play where we are asked to parallel the experiences of Harper and prior.
- [67:36]
A
Question about Harper. So Harper takes Valium, and she supposedly has hallucinations, Vivid hallucinations. And what a lot of the things she conjures in these hallucinations are not Actually, there she says so herself. Like, you know, the mind is not actually able to conjure something new. It takes things that it has seen, breaks them down, and then puts them together in different ways. So it seems new, but it's actually a composite of things you've heard or seen before. The limitations of the imagination, as Kushner says. And yet Harper has a hallucination where she coincides with Prior, who's having a dream, and she and Prior are able to see a lot of the same things. If there's one thing that the play does that the miniseries kind of removes, it's a lot of the magic. Yeah. Like, because you're left to wonder sometimes. Like, is Prior actually a prophet? Is any of this real? Or is this a manifestation of his sickness? Because he does not start having his own hallucinations outside of Harper until he starts taking his, you know, cocktail for his sickness. That's. That's when he comes back from the hospital, and that's when he starts seeing his ancestors. That's when he sees the angel. And my question is, you know, in the play, he and Harper have their hallucination dream crossover in Perestroika at the Mormon center, they both see the same thing happen with the diorama. They both meet in heaven. Part of me wonders, if it is real then, and Prior is a prophet. Part of me wonders, is Harper also a prophet? Right. But because heaven is such a clusterfuck of bad paperwork, they. They talk about this, the disorganization of heaven, because angels are not. They. The angels were not meant to be office clerks, and when God abandoned them, they were forced to do that, and they're bad at it. So Harper could be a prophet that slipped through the cracks.
- [69:40]
B
Well, there are two things that struck me on this watch that, like our total interpretation things, and I could be wrong, and, you know, tell me I'm wrong. Number one, we see Prior, a retired drag queen, in drag, only in the dream. And I'm like, huh? Did Harper see one of Pryor's drag shows? Like, was she sneaking around when she was alone and bored and walk into a bar and see one of his shows once upon a time? And is that where this image has come from in her head? If it is a hallucination, like, that comes from something, because there's. I don't know. And then also, as I was watching Flight to San Francisco, I couldn't get over that. What we've been told multiple times during this play that heaven is like a city, like San Francisco, and maybe everyone knows this, and I'm just realizing this for the first time, or maybe I'm aggressively misinterpreting this play. Is Harper killing herself, and her flight to San Francisco is her dying. I'm sure I'm an idiot.
- [70:59]
A
So I've never. I've never interpreted it that way. I have always interpreted that through. Because it. They cut the scene in the miniseries where Harper and Prior meet again in heaven, where she's taken six Valiums and they talk because she doesn't realize she's in heaven. And she's like, similar to the Antarctica moment, she's like, I guess I flipped the tether and she's looking around, and he's like, yeah, you know, this sort of looks like San Francisco. And she's like, it's kind of sad and disgusting. He's like, no, no, the real San Francisco is beautiful. And she's like, huh. I really would like to see something beautiful and something about. It's like the one thing from that hallucination that she takes with her when she comes back to the real world. Same thing with Threshold of Revelation in Millennium, when Prior says, your husband's a homo, that's the thing she takes away to ask Jo. And so I think from that, it's just, I need to get out of here. I need a change of scenery, and I'm going to go where I. Where someone once told me it was beautiful. I don't remember who, and I don't remember how. According to the text. Yeah, the Threshold of Revelation scene. Harper is so thrown by the idea of Prior wearing makeup and being a man that I do not think she's ever seen a Drax show before, Even, like, wandering in on the street. We are also told.
- [72:24]
B
But don't you think that she, being her, could walk into a drag show and think they're real women?
- [72:29]
A
We're also told that biological women. We're also told that Harper just doesn't leave the house.
- [72:34]
B
Okay, I know I'm wrong. It's just an interesting thought.
- [72:37]
A
No, Alex, I'm not being like, you're wrong.
- [72:39]
B
No, I know. I know I invited it.
- [72:41]
A
But since we're talking about text here, and text is Bible, that is where I'm going off of. I could totally. No, I think there's always a different interpretation of stuff. And if there's one thing I'll say about Tony Kushner that I wish he would be a little more loosey goosey on, and maybe he is now that the play has survived for so long and it's had a million productions is being a little less J.K. rowling a bit about everyone's backstories. Because he's, like, gone. He's, like, gone to productions where people come up with backstories for their characters. He's like, that's wrong. Here's what it is. It's like, let people fucking come up with what they want to come up with for their characters if it helps them make sense. How Andrew Garfield approached Prior is not how Steven Spinella approached Prior, but it's how Andrew had to as a straight British man. Right. And, like, I'm reading these stories in World Only Spins Forward, where he's, like, sitting in on the act production or the production in St. Louis, and. And, like, one of the Harpers, like, wrote down her backstory of who Harper was. And Kushner's like, yeah, that's absolutely wrong. Like, come sit down with me. I'm going to tell you what Harper's backstory is. And she was like, it was very helpful.
- [73:48]
B
I was like, I mean, that's not unique to Tony Kushner. No.
- [73:51]
A
But, like, it's one of those things where the play has gone to such a height that I'm like. And we've had so many versions and so many versions preserved. I'm like, I think people can start to come up with their own backstories if it's. If it helps them find a way into the play. If it makes them then have an interpretation that's hurting the play, that's something else. Like, oh, Harper's a cutter now. It's like, well, a. That's nowhere in the text. And no, like, Harper isn't someone about. She's not trying to mutilate herself with the Valium. She's trying to escape with the Valium. She's not trying to. She's not even trying to, like, release tension or control anything. She's literally just trying to get away. And I think part of the Valium is her agoraphobia, because it isn't in the character description. She's an agoraphobic. So part of the reason why she takes the Valium is, like, it's a way for her to leave the house without leaving the house. There's a world in which. Yeah, like, on a Valium high. When Joe went on one of his many walks in Central park, she stumbled into a bar not knowing she was seeing drag queens, and the image of Prior in drag stuck with her. And she, you know.
- [74:56]
B
No, you swayed me. I'm wrong.
- [74:58]
A
Well, it's not about also being wrong. It's just also. You then also have to ask yourself, in your production of Angels, is there magic or isn't there?
- [75:07]
B
I think there is.
- [75:08]
A
I think there.
- [75:09]
B
I think there has to be.
- [75:10]
A
I don't think. I think.
- [75:11]
B
Can we define the word Fantasia?
- [75:13]
A
What is the word Fantasia?
- [75:15]
B
Well, it's the subtitle of the play, but let's. Oh. A musical composition based on several familiar tunes, a thing composed of a mixture of different forms or styles. So that actually has nothing to do with magic at all.
- [75:27]
A
But so someone.
- [75:28]
B
I just think Fantasia has to do the word Fantasia in magic because of Mickey Mouse and the hat and sorcerer.
- [75:33]
A
Well, that's our Mandela effect, is it not? Yeah.
- [75:36]
B
And it's also because I'm a little gay.
- [75:38]
A
The magic. Someone in the Discord asked, like, does a production of Angels need to be elaborate? Like, can it be simple? It can. Angels works on any level of spectacle you want it to.
- [75:47]
B
Absolutely. I do not think that spectacle and magic are necessarily related to each other 1,000%.
- [75:56]
A
Well, something that Kushner always says in the production notes is, like, honestly, when it comes to the angel, the more obvious it is that it's theatrical, the better.
- [76:05]
B
Yeah. So, like, the first time I saw a production live in college, directed by Jeff Button and Ally Gallerani played the angel, it was.
- [76:15]
A
She was.
- [76:16]
B
It was a silk. She just the. She walked up, she crawled up the silk, looped herself in, and then she was just like. The angel was like her on silks.
- [76:26]
A
Yeah.
- [76:27]
B
And then. Yeah. I'm trying to remember. Well, obviously, in this. The NT Live, it was. She's supported by, like, eight bodies.
- [76:37]
A
Yeah, By. Yeah, by shadows, which in a lot of ways helped them with tech. Because I know with the Broadway production, a lot of previous productions from Broadway, the angel was on string and it was on wires, and it fucked up tech for, like, weeks. But you could do it any number of ways. That's what Angels in America does so well. Is that it. It shows you all of the possibilities of a stage, of ultimately a black box. And that can be as intricate and elaborate as you want it to be or as simple as you want it to be. The. When we talk about magic, magic is, in my eyes, science that we don't understand and can't actually diagnose. It's. It's stuff. It's. It's the. What's going for. It's the coincidences of the universe that we can't explain and things like Harper's hallucination mixing with prior's dream is a moment of magic. And if you make. If you try to make a logical reason for it all happening, you. You lose the beauty of the scene. There are some scenes where you can find logic in it. For example, Ethel Rosenberg. And we can talk about her as well. But like, when she pops in with Roy, most of the time you can make an argument that she isn't there, her ghost isn't there. It's his subconscious haunting him in a lot of ways. The only two times where Ethel is on stage and you go, something is here that. That the. The no logic can explain. And it's when she informs him of the results of the disbarment hearing and, And. And Lewis with the Kash.
- [78:22]
B
Yeah, same scene.
- [78:24]
A
No, separate. She tells him. She tells.
- [78:27]
B
Oh, you're right.
- [78:28]
A
Yeah. Because. Because Roy dying is right at the end of Act 2 of Perestroika. I only know this, Alex, because I.
- [78:34]
B
Literally just watched it an hour ago. Shame on me.
- [78:36]
A
And I will say I literally. I put down Perestroika an hour ago. So that's it. It's just. It's. It's. But. But, you know, I mean, like, it's. It's moments like that where you go, that's magic. It's not like a magic trick. It's not. Pick a card.
- [78:49]
B
Any card is 1 Act 5 and 1 Act 6.
- [78:54]
A
What do you mean?
- [78:55]
B
They are physically in the. In the NT live. They're physically the same set, same composition, which is why I was like, it's the same scene. But now I'm wondering, are they actually quite far apart?
- [79:09]
A
No, they're not that far apart, I believe. I don't know where the act break happens in. In the NT broadcast, because Perestroika is structured as five acts, and of course there were not four act breaks. But I think that the first two acts was like one piece, and then three and four was another piece, and then five was the last one. So it would be Roy dies at the end of Act 2. So it's Ethel coming on to telling about the disbarment and him pretending that she's his mother and her doing the Yiddish song for him and then dying. And then I think Act 5. I think it's the second scene of Act 5, maybe. Let me see, let me see. Yes, because the first Scene of Act 5 is the angel coming to visit Prior. No, sorry, it's scene three. The first scene is the angel to visit Prior again, and he wants to give the book back and he goes back to heaven. Scene two is Harper and Prior in heaven. And then scene three is Louis and Belize. So they're about two scenes apart. It's not that far. It's not that far apart, listeners.
- [80:23]
B
It's not that far apart.
- [80:24]
A
It's not that far apart.
- [80:25]
B
I'm not that dumb. No, Alex, I did think that Harper would go into a gay bar, so maybe I'm dumb.
- [80:32]
A
Well, Marcia Gay Harden has a great line in World only spins Forward where they're like, perestroika is complete. They've opened, it's all good, and they're running. And she's saying something to Tony Kushner about like, God, it's like, I just. I feel so bad for Harper at the end of the play. And Tony Kushner's like, what are you talking about? She leaves. Like, she was married to a gay guy, and then she leaves and she's like, yeah, she was married to a gay guy, and now she's leaving for San Francisco. She still doesn't get it.
- [81:02]
B
I. Marcia Harden, one of my favorite Oscar speeches of all time. She just says, what a thrill.
- [81:09]
A
Well, it's one of those random Oscar wins. She had absolutely no precursors.
- [81:13]
B
Yeah.
- [81:13]
A
And just fucking won it. Yeah. Marcia Gay Harden, Harper in the Broadway production of Angels. The other thing about Angels is just like the roster of talent that has done this play at any given moment, because Marcia Gay Harden originated it on Broadway. Debra Messing did Perestroika in a workshop when she was at nyu. Cynthia Nixon replaced Marsha Gay Harden on Broadway. Mary Louise Parker did the miniseries.
- [81:36]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [81:37]
A
Incredible. And that's just Harper. There's so many fucking others. Zachary Quinto and Adam Driver both did it at the Signature, played Lewis at the time. Same Signature.
- [81:49]
B
They said Dan Futterman, who replaced Mantello.
- [81:52]
A
Dan Futterman.
- [81:53]
B
Dan Futterman.
- [81:54]
A
Yes. Val in Birdcage. And the gay guy, the not gay guy. Gay guy that Charlotte dates in season two of Sex and the City. Yes. Oscar nominated screenwriter of Capote and Foxcatcher.
- [82:07]
B
Yeah. And Birdcage. Another Mike Nichols joint.
- [82:12]
A
Yep. It's all interconnected. You know what's up? You know what's an amazing movie?
- [82:17]
B
The Birdcage. Yep.
- [82:18]
A
Yeah. And also Birdcage. Nathan Lane played Roy Cohn at the National.
- [82:23]
B
Yeah. So? Well, he was so good. I.
- [82:29]
A
We have had some pretty great.
- [82:30]
B
Roy Cohn's Spinella played it in la.
- [82:34]
A
I know. With Bob the Drag Queen as Belize.
- [82:40]
B
It is interesting to me, as I was watching it, some of the category placements for the Tonys of those original Productions. Because I. The miniseries too, when you're dealing with me. So Hannah, I was watching the whole thing. I'm like, Hannah is the sheet. That track is the biggest track. She's got the most scenes.
- [83:06]
A
Because she's the actress playing.
- [83:09]
B
The actress playing.
- [83:10]
A
Yeah.
- [83:10]
B
Because not only is she Hannah, not only is she Ethel, but she plays almost every other role in Millennium Approaches her.
- [83:20]
A
And the actress playing the angel.
- [83:21]
B
Yes, the angel only plays the nurse, the homeless woman, and the real estate agent. Whereas all of. And most of those are. Except for the nurse. One scene tracks. Whereas Martin is in a few scenes. The doctor is in a few scenes. Both plays open with either the rabbi or the Bolshevik played by that track. I'm like, Hannah, it is.
- [83:49]
A
It's absolutely the most. The most roles.
- [83:52]
B
Kathleen Chalfont, who then went on to do Wit.
- [83:55]
A
Wit. Yep, yep. It's all. And again, Emma Thompson, wit. It's all interconnected. The thing is, Hannah Pitt is not. I would argue Hannah Pitt is not a leading role in Millennium Approaches alone. It's when you look at Millennium Approaches and Perestroika together that her track really feels like a lead. Because Hannah is so much more prominent in Perestroika. Whereas Part one, I think it's possible to look at it and go, oh, this actress who has a bunch of small parts collectively. So collectively, she's got a lot of stage time, but does not have one specific role that's like a center to the story.
- [84:36]
B
Do you think Lewis changes in the play?
- [84:40]
A
I do. I don't think that Lewis necessarily. Lewis. I think Lewis changes in a human way because Lewis, in my eyes, does the annoying thing, which is. Does a terrible thing, and then spends the majority of the play beating himself up about it, but not actually grappling with what he's done and how to do better. He just thinks the self flagellation is enough. Right. It's like, I'm crying enough for the both of us, so you don't have to attack me. It's like, well, no, let's actually talk about what it is that you did and what, like, what are you gonna do now? And he comes back to Prior with, I think a good realization of I failed you. And that doesn't mean. Because I was. Because I was bad at loving you. That doesn't mean I don't love you. And it doesn't mean I can't love again. It doesn't mean I can't do better. I would like to come back and I would like to do better.
- [85:45]
B
I think you think that that is a change, though.
- [85:47]
A
I do. I do. It's not the kind of change that we're used to seeing in plays or movies or musicals. Because what we're used to seeing is the homophobe and kinky boots not being a homophobe anymore and actually being the leader of the protest march at the end of the show.
- [86:02]
B
I guess my question is if I'm playing Louis.
- [86:06]
A
Yes.
- [86:08]
B
And I'm inside that character's head.
- [86:12]
A
I.
- [86:13]
B
Think I haven't changed. That's always how I felt. I just needed to run away for a little bit. I'm justifying my abandoning you. It wasn't that big a deal. I've always felt like this. So when. So let me come back because this is who I always was. I don't. I don't think I've changed. I just made a mistake.
- [86:41]
A
I think acknowledging the mistake is part of the change. I don't view it as him saying it wasn't a big deal. I view it as him fighting for the right to come back because his fight with.
- [86:52]
B
Fight with Belize in the epilogue is not dissimilar to his spats with Belize either on the park bench or about the national anthem.
- [87:02]
A
No, that's the thing is we change what we don't. Lewis is always gonna be okay, Sondheim. Fuck you. We. We. Louis is always going to be a well read, well informed, you know, mile a minute talker who, as Pryor says, I'm gonna butcher the line, but like, you know, eat himself out from like the gut, from through his asshole, through his guts, outward of talking himself through circles of morality and democracy and the world. Right. That's always going to be a part of him and what he does. But he can, as a human being, get a bit more self awareness and get a little bit more of a backbone. And I do think he comes back with that. I mean, do you know anyone in life who's like really made a 180 as a human being? Oh, I think I've seen people have massive changes. Only when it's been years apart that I've seen them and certain things have to have happened. I will. Okay. Actually, I'll put. I'll say this as you think. Let me. I'll. I'll. Yeah. Someone who I do consider a friend, but have been in and out of communication with for years, have known them for, at this point, almost 20 years. They are not a bad person. On a. On a political level, we agree. On a moral level, we agree with. And they're not a vindictive person, but they are a little bit of a selfish person. A little bit of. I wouldn't say shallow, but definitely it's very much a little egotistical.
- [88:35]
B
Matt, I'm right here. You can just call it. Say it to my face.
- [88:39]
A
You're a cunt. This person, though, had kind of a come to Jesus moment during lockdown, realizing, like, I actually don't have a lot of friends. I have people who I work with, people I went to school with, people who, like me, find, like, not a lot of people I can call my friend. And when we came out of lockdown and I saw this person again, they were far more, like, open and questioning and, like, interested in talking to me than they had been in years. And I discovered later on that this was why now they still have a lot of the things they had for the last 20ish years, but it's part of. It's a part of their DNA now. But they are able to not make it as much of their identity as it was. Like, it's now more of a quirk about them rather than a trait.
- [89:28]
B
Yeah.
- [89:29]
A
And I feel like with Lewis, what we see him in the final scene has become, if not officially his quirk rather than his trait. A little more of a quirk than a trait.
- [89:39]
B
I would argue that Hannah changes 180.
- [89:45]
A
I think when I see from Hannah's, I see a refinement of what was there.
- [89:50]
B
But even though she now has a side part.
- [89:53]
A
Never underestimate the importance of a side part.
- [89:56]
B
The importance of a side part.
- [89:57]
A
But I love. Oh, okay. No, we gotta talk about Hannah. But that's gotta be another minute. Okay. Huh? How are we doing on time? Okay, we're gonna take another break, and then we're gonna talk about Hannah.
- [90:07]
B
Okay. And then I have an assignment for us on the break.
- [90:09]
A
Fantastic break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah, you're an Arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire. And we're back. So we were saying that we were going to have a bit of a discussion on Hannah Pitt because you said of all the characters, she's the one that probably changes the most, at least outwardly, of what we can view almost like by a yardstick as change. She has a new style. She's got a slightly more polished and Manhattanite demeanor in terms of her mentality. She's definitely a bit softer, I would say, than when we first meet her. But we learn that there is an inquisitiveness and an introspection about her that maybe a lot of people wouldn't recognize because of the salt of the earth, desert Mormon Persona that she gives off at first, right? Her coming to New York, selling her house after hearing what Joe had to say and all this stuff. That's not her wanting to grab her son by the ear, be like, we're putting you in a conversion therapy camp. That's her being like, something's going on over there with my son and my daughter in law. I gotta go over there to help out. Like, she's, she wants to help. Hannah is someone who wants to help all the time. She, when she gets there, she doesn't want to just like sightsee. She wants to go to the Mormon center and volunteer. And ultimately her desire to be needed is what helps, is what convinces her to take Prior to the hospital when they meet. But I always loved the scene with Hannah and Prior in the Mormon center after she and Joe have their fight. And he goes off and, you know, she, she says to him, like, I want to talk about what you said on the phone now that we're here together. And he doesn't want to. She's like, just like, whether you are or you aren't, like, let's talk about it. And he's like, no, no, no. He goes off and then Prior comes in and Hannah just looks at him and her immediate thought is homo. She says to him, are you a homosexual? And she's not persecuting him. She's curious because her son won't do it. So she wants to know. And Prior, in Prior, Prior's way, goes about with these one liners. One of the best one liners of all time, which is the. What are you saying? Are you asking if I'm a hairdresser or something? Are you a hairdresser? Well, it'll be your lucky day if I was one of the best one liners of all time. Anyway, Hannah's inquisitiveness isn't about persecuting Prior. In fact, she gets bristly when she feels like she has to be defensive. She's not there to fight, she's there to engage. So clearly there is a seed in there that is eager to be watered. And I think by the immersion of New York City and having three very different homosexuals in her life has given her that sophistication or an aura of sophistication and softness that allows her to change. I don't think it's a. I don't think it's a 180, because I think that was always there. It's just the exterior and the demeanor that has changed.
- [93:20]
B
Do you think that in the epilogue she's still in the Mormon Church?
- [93:27]
A
I do, I do.
- [93:31]
B
Can we call. Do we call it the epilogue?
- [93:33]
A
Yeah.
- [93:33]
B
Am I being reductive?
- [93:34]
A
That's. No, I think that's what they call it. They call the epilogue. Right, The Bethesda fountain scene. Yeah, yeah, because she's.
- [93:42]
B
Epilogue. Yeah, yeah.
- [93:43]
A
Because we learned from Prior speech the audience about the story of Bethesda and the fountain of Healing. You know, he, Lewis and Belize tell the audience about it, and Prior says they know about it because I told them, and I know about it because Hannah told me. So, like, Hannah remembers all of her teachings and most likely still goes to church and studies. But I think that Hannah has gone from maybe being devout and literal to interpretive. There's. There's some podcast. I need to find it again. But John Cameron Mitchell was a guest on it at one point, and he's, you know, got his own hangups with religion, but he talked about who he studied under in school and stayed close with and said, you know, at some point, I might have been the 90s or the 2000s, when, you know, the religious conservatives were once again taking. Storming the media and talking about the Bible. He and she were talking about it, and she just sort of sighed and she went, you know, John, when will these people realize, like, the Bible is a book of poems? It's not law. It is for us. It is. They are parables for us to learn morals from. It is not, you know, hard, cold fact. And I feel like Hannah has officially leapt into that mentality, especially when she and Prior talk about what angels are, you know, in the hospital scene. And she doesn't view angels necessarily as literal, which is they're a belief, they're an idea, they're. They're hope almost, in a lot of ways. And seeing one is doesn't mean you're crazy. It means that you are in such need of a belief that it appears to you. And there. And there's something to be said for that. You know, Hannah has a lot of grit about her, but she also has a lot of optimism, considering who she is and what she's about, wouldn't you say?
- [95:46]
B
I mean, I think ultimately she's the largest beacon of hope in the play.
- [95:51]
A
Yeah.
- [95:52]
B
Like, my takeaway from watching Harper this time was, sorry, Hannah.
- [95:55]
A
Yeah.
- [95:56]
B
Was like conversations that I've had with people a generation above us about gender where they are resistant sometimes simply on the basis of the use of language. Like their hang ups come from language. And the minute that you not challenge it, but like, really talk them through it, like I was speaking to. I'll say it, I'm very proud of him. My father, about. About the. A non binary person in my life. And my dad was like, I don't get why it's a plural pronoun. It's just one person. And I was like, well, it's not. It's not a plural pronoun. Like, and the minute that he. I was able to find an example of like, they as a singular pronoun in a vernacular that he understood, referring to like a mailman.
- [96:54]
A
Yeah. Like, how are you doing today?
- [96:56]
B
Oh, I'm totally over this weird hang up. And. And he's embraced it. My father, like, just totally run with it in a way that I'm so proud of him because it's, you know, our brains are codified and to learn something new in your 60s is hard. And that is what I see in Hannah. And what I see, absolutely the dissolvement in our state, of our world is anyone above the age of 60's ability to learn something new or think about something that they are so confident they have everything figured out about from a different perspective.
- [97:34]
A
Yeah.
- [97:35]
B
And that is what Hannah does. She really is like, she allows herself to learn something new about something she thought she knew everything about. And that is why she's now like my favorite character now.
- [97:48]
A
She's an amazing character. I think. The world is so large and it is so complex, and you can either be burdened by that or explore that. Harper is kind of burdened by that knowledge for most of the play until the very end when she cuts ties with the planter wart that is her husband. People get hang ups because new information is always scary. And nobody wants to seem like an idiot. Nobody wants to seem like a newborn baby. Especially when you've lived a certain amount of life, you can feel like people are talking down to you. No one wants to feel like people who don't respect or understand what you've been through talk down to you.
- [98:30]
B
But you also. And this is not about angels in America, just about the world.
- [98:36]
A
Yeah.
- [98:37]
B
I think we really got to start interrogating people on the. On when they feel spoken down to and whether that is a projection or whether it is reality, because I think 85% of the time, if someone is feeling spoken down to, it is Simply because they are feeling defensive.
- [98:59]
A
Sure.
- [99:00]
B
And I do think 15% of the time those of us who feel morally superior can speak down to people.
- [99:07]
A
I don't love feeling morally superior. I get frustrated if I feel like I'm talking to someone who just doesn't get on a basic level, empathy. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing here anymore. I feel like I'm talking in circles and I just want to leave.
- [99:22]
B
So you do feel like you are talking down to them.
- [99:24]
A
I've been told that I'm condescending on this podcast by people who've tuned in. I was literally given a comment on Spotify like three weeks ago that suddenly Seymour and I came off as arrogant and condescending or something like that on our Little Shop of Horrors episode, an episode that I remember being nothing but pure joy from first, second, to last. But it's a lot of times when you have disdain for something or you or think less of something. How else can you talk about it but down. When I'm told, you sound like you're talking down about a show you didn't like, I'm like, it's really hard not to sound that way. Right. But I love learning new shit. I love being given new information that prove me wrong about something that I can now take with me. You know, I am a big fan of having excitement for sharing information rather than a condescension of, you don't know this already. I think that learning and teaching are two of the greatest joys of the world. And I can understand the frustration and the fear of looking like an idiot or being treated like an idiot. I also can understand the frustration of trying to meet someone where they're at and not and then feel like you're talking gibberish because it's a brick wall. Sometimes things slip through. But I mean, I've had conversations over dinner with family members, my own father, my own mother. And it goes both ways. I can be ignorant about a million things. I can be oblivious about a million things and say something with so little insight or understanding and be given more context. And there have been times where it was said to me and I was like, thank you, that was really helpful. And then times when I said, thank you, that was really helpful. In the future, can you maybe not say it like that? Because what you're saying is important, but you're saying it in a way that makes me not want to hear it.
- [101:27]
B
Yeah.
- [101:28]
A
And it's not about, like, it being a hard truth. It's Just. Can you not talk to me like I'm scum of the earth for not knowing that?
- [101:38]
B
Yeah. What. What about when it's not about not knowing something, but it's about believing something that you morally and fundamentally disagree with?
- [101:47]
A
So I've actually given this example before. My best friend came to Pride three years ago, four years ago, with her husband and her in laws, and they're like, such fucking lovely people. Total allies. Wonderful. And it was my first time being at the Pride parade. Didn't love it, to be perfectly honest. It was very, very corporate. It was, bank of America gives you sleigh fag float. I'm like, God damn it. But we're standing there, we're watching, and we're watching, like, the New York City Gay Men's Chorus walk and all this other stuff. And it's all joy, it's all rainbows, it's all unicorns. And then the leather brigade shows up, and they're just walking in, you know, chains and whatever and all this stuff. And Sarah just lets out a very honest. And, like, not even thinking about it. Oh, I don't like this. I just turned around. I was like, okay, why don't you like this? And she's like, well, it's just so. And we talked about it, and ultimately it came down to. It was so overtly sexual to her. And it. And her viewpoint of what Pride was was more about emotions and. And what's looking for representation and just visibility. I was like, but visibility is visibility everywhere.
- [103:00]
B
And our visibility is specifically tied to our sexuality.
- [103:04]
A
Yes. I said it in order to be accepting. It's accepting all of us. You don't have to watch, you know, us go at it, you know, like. And they're not doing anything other than just walking in leather gear. Yeah, listen. Some of it was like, leather masks to cover their faces. And I was like, listen, that's not my jam sexually either. And I probably wouldn't walk down it myself in a Pride parade just because that doesn't represent me. But it's not. I like it fine. For everyone else, it's fine. The whole point of Pride is, yes, you, you and you, you're all different facets of the same diamond.
- [103:42]
B
And I would actually take that one step further and say, the whole point of Pride is to take a specific thing that someone else has made you feel ashamed of and say, actually, I'm proud of this.
- [103:55]
A
Yeah.
- [103:55]
B
And you don't get to make me feel ashamed of it anymore. This is the thing about me that I'm actually The most proud of.
- [104:02]
A
And also your opinion ultimately doesn't matter because it's here. What does. It has nothing to do with you. Just let it be and let it be wonderful for someone else. And it was, it wasn't an accusatory. No, no, but it wasn't. I didn't give her an accusatory conversation. And she, she sometimes gets mad at me when I bring this up on the podcast because it's not. She doesn't view it as one of her proudest moments. I think it's.
- [104:27]
B
I just tell us her name and Social Security number.
- [104:28]
A
Fantastic. But I told her, I was like, I think you should be proud of it because it was a moment for you. And we talked about it and you came out with a new perspective. And like, she's never going to be a leather queen. Why? Why should she be? That's not her cross to bear. She doesn't have to be. But we finished that conversation just like, you're totally right. That's. It's not for me to have an opinion on. And also like it should, it's their every right to be proud and own it. And like, if I say what I mean, that I am here to support, like, I support that. I'm here to support all of it. I was like, yeah, I think that's a wonderful major step to make in 20 minutes. People can change, Alex. People can do a total 180.
- [105:04]
B
Oh, people can change, Matthew.
- [105:06]
A
I've always depended on the kindness of strangers.
- [105:08]
B
That's a line in the play.
- [105:09]
A
Well, what's the follow up line? Because the actual line is a quote from Streetcar.
- [105:13]
B
Well, thank you. I know what the line is from.
- [105:15]
A
I'm just saying you've proven yourself to be an uncultured fuck this entire time.
- [105:19]
B
Only because I thought that Harper may have gone to a gay bar and I'm sorry.
- [105:23]
A
And because neither one of us can sing Golden Apple anymore.
- [105:28]
B
No, you're right, I can't.
- [105:29]
A
Yeah, but it's when Prior comes back from heaven and Hannah has to go to the hospital room and she's like.
- [105:36]
B
You shouldn't do that.
- [105:37]
A
She says, I'll come back if I can. He goes, please do. I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. And she just goes, well, that's a stupid thing to do. It's one of Meryl's best line deliveries in the miniseries.
- [105:49]
B
That was the moment this morning. There was that. And then the people come and go so quickly.
- [105:54]
A
Yep.
- [105:55]
B
Which happens.
- [105:56]
A
That's the Harper Pryor threshold of revelation.
- [105:58]
B
There's Another one of those. No, no. You were there and you were there and you were there. Yeah, that's the same scene. And my boyfriend just looked at me and goes, is Tony Kushner gay? I was like, yes. The Williams, the wizard of Oz. I think he's gay.
- [106:11]
A
My Fair Lady. Even Prior sings a little bit of Nippy Loverly.
- [106:16]
B
Wouldn't it be lovely when he's having a.
- [106:18]
A
The Vision of the Prophets.
- [106:19]
B
Yeah.
- [106:19]
A
With the ancestors. Yeah, yeah.
- [106:22]
B
It's just a good play. It's a really good thing is. It's a good play. It is.
- [106:26]
A
Well, so in addition to it being a good play. Play.
- [106:28]
B
Yeah.
- [106:29]
A
What is another thing that you think would. That attracts actors about it, not just, like the importance of it?
- [106:35]
B
Oh, no.
- [106:35]
A
Well, that's.
- [106:37]
B
It's a good play because it's a good play. Like, the writing is impeccable. It is. So the scenes, the literal line to line dialogue of any given scene is delicious. It's fucking delicious to be able to. Because you, you can like, oh, these, these characters speak. So everyone's so articulate and they have an ability to. Playing smart characters is so fun because the language does so much of the work of you playing, playing your action and being like, if I'm feeling this and I'm playing this. The language of a great play has done so much of that work for you already that it's A, easier and B, more satisfying. And as actors, like, also, like, half of our job is the way that we're. The action being played on us by our scene partner. And when you're receiving a line or receiving an action that's so well done, it makes your job of responding that much easier because you're actually being moved to the point of furthering this next moment. I always, I did this, I did Hand to God years ago. And, and I always talked about how it was technically the hardest thing I've ever done. But that is a play where you. It's like you.
- [108:06]
A
You sit.
- [108:08]
B
You sit in the car, you strap in the seatbelt, and you just go on the ride. That play is so well written. He does. Robert Askins, that playwright, does so much of that work for you. What makes acting hard sometimes is where you really have to struggle and justify going beat to beat. Like, I don't really know how I'm getting there. How am I reaching that moment? I don't know why I say this thing in response to that. And when you're. When it's a good fucking play, like, this is a good fucking play. It is so easy. Famously an incredibly difficult play to do as well. Because the flip side of that, the ideas are huge. The ideas are huge, but the actual writing of it.
- [108:56]
A
It'S ultimate. It's a play of huge scope, but is done through microcosms. It's so many intimate two handers. I mean plenty of three, four person.
- [109:11]
B
Scenes as well, but not plenty. I mean most scenes are two handers.
- [109:16]
A
Of a seven hour evening. There are. There are more than a few three, four handers. But I would say the majority are indeed two handers or they are two handers in disguise because there are scenes that overlap and they feel like it's a.
- [109:32]
B
But as an actor you're dealing with a two handed.
- [109:34]
A
Yeah. Like the all skate towards the end of Act 2 of Millennium.
- [109:37]
B
I now understand what you mean, but that is a very confusing term for that because it isn't an all skate. It's only four actors. And all skate refers to when all the actors of a play are on stage.
- [109:47]
A
So then I'm just wrong.
- [109:49]
B
Yeah. And I'm talking to you condescendingly.
- [109:52]
A
You're from so Scum of the earth. That's me, daddy. So the Harper, Joe Pryor Lewis, the over the overlap scene at the end of Act 2 of Part 1, when Joe and Harper, when Joe finally comes home wanting to talk about possibly being gay and has the ulcer flare up and Lewis and Prior break up. That is. It's two, two handers. But they're happening at the same time as. All right.
- [110:19]
B
Yeah, I wouldn't. But I would continue to refer to those as two. Two person scenes.
- [110:24]
A
But that's what I mean is. Yeah, there are a few of those. And if.
- [110:29]
B
And the ones that aren't. It's because the third character is supernatural.
- [110:32]
A
A lot of the time. Yeah. And when one character can't see.
- [110:35]
B
Yeah.
- [110:36]
A
The number. Like every time Ethel Rosenberg's on stage, only Roy can see her, only Harper can see Mr. Lies.
- [110:42]
B
And except for one moment or one scene, only prior can see the angel. Until. Until.
- [110:48]
A
Yes, yes. The other question is another reason why I think this show is catnip for actors is almost every role is double cast. Just about everybody gets to play somebody else at some point.
- [111:02]
B
Yeah.
- [111:03]
A
The only. But here's the thing. So in part one, Lewis is the only track that doesn't play another role. And in part two, Prior is the only one who doesn't play another role. And that's also. And that's on a technicality because the actress playing Roy Lewis, Harper and Joe get to Be angels in heaven. But they don't get to be. They don't get to have a Hannah or nurse track where it's, you're Hannah paid, you're Ethel Rosenberg.
- [111:32]
B
But isn't. Are the Prior Walters. Prior Priors in part two at all, the first scene.
- [111:41]
A
No, they're not.
- [111:42]
B
Yeah.
- [111:42]
A
And the ancestor Priors in part one, that's Roy and Joe Prior. Walter plays the dude in the park that has the hookup with Lewis. Harper plays Roy's cohort. Hannah plays Ethel and plays the doctor and plays the rabbi and the Bolshevik. Well, yes. Yeah. And Perestroika. The thing about both plays, I also found, I came to discover from Reading World only spins forward. There is no heterosexual cisgender male in the show. All straight male characters are played by women.
- [112:16]
B
Yeah.
- [112:18]
A
All the cisgender men in the show play homosexuals. It's fascinating.
- [112:26]
B
Do you think that Joe is bisexual?
- [112:29]
A
No.
- [112:29]
B
As accused by Lewis.
- [112:31]
A
I don't think Lewis is necessarily accusing him of that so much as Lewis is trying to dilute Joe's journey by already subconsciously distancing himself from. From their intimacy. Joe is not bisexual. He says as such, he identifies as gay. I mean. Well, it's. Okay. That's. Actually. That's. That's. I stand by my argument. That was a poor example because that would imply that Joe has done enough introspection to make a statement that we can all go, you've done the work to back that up. I think. I do think Joe is gay. I think Joe can be with women because he's trained himself to be with women, but he's not. He wants men the best of us, too. Yeah. But also, it's implied that Hannah Pitt is probably a lesbian.
- [113:15]
B
Yeah, she. Cause it's genetic, baby.
- [113:19]
A
Well, actually. Okay, so two things. One, there's a moment in the play and in the miniseries that I completely forgot about, which is when Prior and Hannah are in the hospital and they've known each other for a total of two hours. And she realizes who Prior is is that Prior's ex boyfriend has been with her son. And so she tells her. Tells Prior about Joe and tells him about the phone call. He called me about being gay and I got angry. I was taken aback. She goes, it made no sense to me. She goes. But then again, it's just like two men together makes no sense to me. In the same way that, like, I just don't get what's hot about men. She goes, I've done it. It's all just kind of gross and part of you thinks, oh, maybe she's just asexual. But then of course, her major breakthrough is the angel gives her plasma orgasmata. There's a line that's not in the play, but it's in the miniseries when Hannah and Harper are at the Mormon center and they're talking about Jo a little bit because Hannah's back and taking care of Harper and neither one of them can find Joe. They can't get in contact with him. And they're finally talking about it a little bit. And Hannah says, they say that these things happen due to a very close bond with the mother. She takes speech. She goes, so I guess we disproved that theory. And I love that line. I do. It has that. That has nothing to do with your joke about genetics, just it reminded me of that line. I guess we disproved that theory.
- [114:59]
B
Yes, we did.
- [115:00]
A
Yeah. I also, I also love when Hannah's first scene coming back in, in Paras, when we find out, you know, she's, she's, she's come in and Harper's left and her hallucination with Mr. Lies we discover, oh, she's, she never went to Antarctica.
- [115:17]
B
She's just chewed a pine tree. In Central Park.
- [115:20]
A
No, in Brooklyn.
- [115:20]
B
She's in Brooklyn?
- [115:21]
A
Yeah, in Prospect Park. And the next scene is Hannah arriving at their apartment and answering the phone. And it's the police and it's just, it's the one sided conversation.
- [115:29]
B
She's like, well, that's not a nice thing to say.
- [115:31]
A
She goes, yeah, you stop laughing right now. That's ugly. But then she learns about the pine tree and all that stuff. She just goes, she goes, hospital? No, no, that she won't need to go to a hospital. She's not insane. She's just peculiar. I just love. She's just peculiar. But it's implied about like Harper's life back in Utah and how Jo kind of quote unquote saved her. She had a bad childhood, a bad upbringing, a lot of abuse, and she and Joe kind of found each other and ran off together and they have their own sort of abusive relationship because in a lot of ways Jo likes to be needed and likes to be her savior. But the only way he can be your savior is to kind of weaken her. Right? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a fucked up marriage, not the sexuality of it aside, just like how they treat each other and how he treats her in particular. How you, you watch him belittle her and take all of the things she says at fate. She's when she's trying to have honest conversations with him. When she comes out of her Valium, Haze wants to talk about his sexuality. And she says, I want to talk to you. And also the fact that he goes on these long walks, and she wants to know about where he goes on these long walks. And he keeps on interrupting her mid sentence and being like, you want to talk to me about what? About the job offer. I told you. And she's like, no, not the job offer. And she's trying to get herself together, and she's yelling at him because he's not listening. He won't let her finish. And when she tries to finish, she goes, you're talking in circles. You're talking crazy. What am I supposed to do with you right now? How many pills? How many pills? And it just becomes accusatory. And it's not gaslighting because he's not warping her sense of reality so much as that he's just. He won't address the things she wants to address. And that. That just becomes frustrating and makes you kind of. Again, like I was saying before, when you're trying to have a conversation with someone and you're trying to be open and honest, and it's like a brick wall that can. That can make you feel crazy. It's like. Well, am I talking gibberish here? What. What's the disconnect right now? Yeah. I don't know. It's. Harper is a. Hannah is the. Is the character that gives me the most hope. Harper is the character that I feel for the most. But she also has that wonderful speech at the end, the knife flight.
- [117:51]
B
Yeah. Which I think is her committing suicide.
- [117:54]
A
Yes. Alex thinks that that's Harper committing suicide. She is one of the souls that. That leaves the Earth and fixes the ozone.
- [118:02]
B
I mean, I'm just gonna look at it right now.
- [118:06]
A
Do you want to recite it word for word, baby?
- [118:08]
B
No. That's weird.
- [118:10]
A
Okay, well, then I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna read it this for our listeners. Harper Pitt has left Joe Pitt. Taken his credit card, got on a flight, left New York City to find her own adventure. And meanwhile, we've been told in Millennium approaches that as Harper listens to the radio, she stays in all day. There's a hole in the ozone, and she wants to go to Antarctica to see the hole in the ozone. But instead she decides to go to San Francisco. And she says, night flight to San Francisco. Chase the moon across America. God, it's been years since I was on a Plane. When we hit 35,000ft, we'll have reached the tropopause, the great belt of calm air. As close as I'll ever get to the ozone. I dreamed we were there. The plane leapt the tropopause, the safe air. And attained the outer rim, the ozone. Which was ragged and torn patches of it. Threadbare as old cheesecloth. And that was frightening. But I saw something only I could see. Because of my astonishing ability to see such things. Souls were rising from the earth far below. Souls of the dead. Of people who had perished from famine, from war, from the plague. And they floated up like skydivers in reverse. Limbs all akimbo, wheeling and spinning. And the souls of these departed. Joined hands, clasped ankles. And formed a web. A great net of souls. And the souls were three atom oxygen molecules of the stuff of ozone. And the outer rim absorbed them and was repaired. Nothing's lost forever. In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind. And dreaming ahead. At least I think that's so. That's how I would do that.
- [119:52]
B
Okay, well, first of all, everyone, clap. Clap for Matt. Like Tinkerbells so he gets his light back.
- [119:56]
A
Thank you.
- [119:57]
B
Wonderful acting.
- [119:57]
A
Thank you. I was trying to follow up your beliefs.
- [119:59]
B
Okay. I think there's a reading of that speech that says we are more useful dead than alive. If I am dead, I can be a soul that helps heal the ozone. And theatrically speaking, whenever we see Harper alone. We are unsure if we are in reality or not. She is an unreliable physical narrator. That sort of. I don't. I don't.
- [120:33]
A
I'm just.
- [120:33]
B
You haven't disproven my theory.
- [120:35]
A
My question for you is, how does she exit this Earth?
- [120:42]
B
She overdoses on Valium.
- [120:44]
A
So she. So she takes Joe's credit card and then just decides to overdose on Valium? Did she at least go to a really nice hotel room to do it?
- [120:52]
B
I don't know. Maybe she does it accidentally.
- [120:54]
A
Maybe like.
- [120:55]
B
I'm just saying, it's not the most optimistic reading of that speech. That is actually about this person that we've seen in so much pain. Finally have some hope for herself. But I don't know. Isn't that what we get to do as actors, is interpret things?
- [121:15]
A
No, I don't trust. No, no, I totally hear you. I think that there's absolutely something to be said for that. Again, it all comes from how you look at it. And what you bring to it at that moment in your life. And what feels right for you. As well as. By the way, we're talking about an interpretation separate from any production.
- [121:33]
B
Oh yeah, this is just like, like.
- [121:34]
A
The moment you, you're in a production, it could totally change or it could totally justify what you are saying about this monologue.
- [121:41]
B
It was just I. I'd always known that scene as being called Night Flight to San Francisco. And as I was watching the play the last few days, how many times they refer to heaven as San Francisco, I was like, I see why it can be literal. And I am also now for the first time thinking about what if it's not literal? And that's what great plays can do.
- [122:09]
A
Yeah, it is exactly what great plays can do. You guys write in Harper Pitt. Does she make it to the end alive or dead? Yeah, go ahead.
- [122:17]
B
Like tear me to pieces. I understand that this could be absolutely idiotic, but you know what?
- [122:27]
A
It would only be idiotic if you were idiotic and you're not idiotic.
- [122:35]
B
I can't put this on the pod, so never mind.
- [122:37]
A
No, you wanted to. When we, when I asked you to come on this, you said you wanted to do a little discussion on like historical figures and dramatic works.
- [122:46]
B
Oh, I just specifically like, because I do think that for many of us, Roy Cohn is a larger literary figure than historical figure.
- [122:57]
A
Sure.
- [122:59]
B
I don't think like Adolf Hitler is a larger literary figure because we do not actually get that many depictions of Hitler himself. We get a lot of the people around him, like the great novel hhhh. And I'm just. It makes me think about what is gonna in 40 years from now, if there's still a planet. If what. What the Trump fiction's gonna be.
- [123:30]
A
I don't know. It both takes distance and intimacy to know and do well. And that's sort of the problem. It's so hard to find that marriage because you can't really.
- [123:45]
B
Do it while a person is still alive. And what we see now, at least in the American musical theater, is any depiction of a figure is sort of like produced by that person's estate.
- [124:02]
A
Yep.
- [124:03]
B
So we're not getting any nuance. We're not getting any three dimensionality. We're not even getting. We're barely getting character flaws.
- [124:11]
A
Yeah, if, if. So you're referring to the bio jukebox musicals especially.
- [124:16]
B
Primarily.
- [124:16]
A
Yeah. Those have basically one of two things. If the main figure is female, their biggest flaw is that they married the wrong man for a time, but they eventually leave them. And if they're male, they weren't close with their kids for a while because of their success and then either reconnect with their kids or they lose a kid. And that makes them realize fame isn't all what it's cracked up to be. That's, like, their big flaw. And as you said, it's because the estates produce it, and thus they are not interesting characters. Yeah, I'll fucking say it. The estate didn't produce it. But people go on and on about Lempicka. A quick Google search of the actual Lempicka will show you she was far more fascinating in real life than the show would have you believe. She was more complicated, and I hate to use the word, but problematic as a human being. The musical would have you believe, but far more interesting with all these complexities. Girlfriend basically stole a dying woman's husband while this one was dying of cancer, like, on her bed, and, like, grabbed her husband and married him and became a baroness.
- [125:19]
B
Yeah.
- [125:19]
A
Musical doesn't touch on that.
- [125:21]
B
Well, the musical says it's with her blessing.
- [125:23]
A
Well, I think what makes Roy Cohn such a fascinating character is ultimately, Kushner had the intimacy of living in that time.
- [125:34]
B
Yeah.
- [125:35]
A
With the distance of not actually knowing Roy Cohn, and Roy having been dead for at least three years at that point.
- [125:43]
B
Because, like, when we see, like, in the Normal Heart, we don't get. We don't get a depiction of Ed Koch. We just get his assistant.
- [125:52]
A
Yes.
- [125:58]
B
This play sort of says, no, no, let's take on the figure.
- [126:04]
A
Well, also, remember, we're not talking about Reigen. We're not talking about, like, the ultimate honcho of this. We're talking about Roy Cohn, who is arguably a more interesting character and why he's ripe for this play as a human being. Vile, disgusting, but larger than life. Richard III esque, and having the ultimate dramatic irony of deaths, of hiding his homosexuality for so long and being so ashamed of it, and then dying the way so many of his fellow homosexuals died and without any support or love. The. The what. What Kushner said about the AIDS quilt patch of Roy Cohn, the bully, coward victim. He said, if I can. If I can create a character that's like, basically half of that, I will have done my job. So it's good to know for anyone who's trying to write things like this, and you have terrible people in your show, you can't go, well, here's our villain, and we must. You have to treat them as humans. That's where the drama comes from. That's where the interesting stuff comes from.
- [127:12]
B
To bring back our Mike Nichols circle For a second. And the Reagan of it all. Did you know that Ronald Reagan was approached or considered to play the dad and the graduate?
- [127:27]
A
I did not.
- [127:27]
B
Which would have revitalized his career, which would have maybe kept him in Hollywood, which would have maybe made him not be our president.
- [127:34]
A
Well, a lot of talk about the 07 writers strike.
- [127:36]
B
Oh, yeah, that's the play I want.
- [127:39]
A
Yep.
- [127:40]
B
Anyway.
- [127:41]
A
Anyway. But yeah, Fascinating. Fascinating stuff. So. So many butterfly effects where you go, could it have been? Would it have been? Or are these things just sort of lying in wait and it's just a matter of who's the thing that's gonna come along and make it happen?
- [127:58]
B
Somebody save us. Somebody save us.
- [128:01]
A
Something or anything.
- [128:02]
B
Who's gonna save us?
- [128:03]
A
Who's gonna save us? It's.
- [128:05]
B
Is it Dolly Parton?
- [128:06]
A
It could be.
- [128:07]
B
She.
- [128:08]
A
She keeps on keeping. Let's take one last break. And then we have a question from the Discord Channel that Alex is very excited to attack. All right, so let's take one last break. Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah. You're an arrow caller. You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread of the feet of red. And we are back. So on the Discord Channel, and as it so happens, Alex asked the same question off mic. So we're just bringing it up now.
- [128:45]
B
I'm prescient.
- [128:46]
A
We were asked, who would you dream cast for Angels in America? And now Alex has his dream cast.
- [128:56]
B
Okay, this is. Mine's crazy because I don't know about ages. So I've got like two. There are a few roles that I have multiple options for. The idea being here that this is on the stage in a limited major engagement. So it's not like you can get an A list celebrity who's not giving.
- [129:16]
A
Up a year of their life 1000%.
- [129:18]
B
So we'll start with Roy Cohn. I think the most interesting thing would be Joe Mantello.
- [129:29]
A
Mmm.
- [129:31]
B
I don't know if she would do it because I don't know if she does boy roles anymore. But Eddie Izzard, she would be an incredible Roy Cohn. And then if we're going like, celebrity, celebrity, celebrity. Paul Giamatti.
- [129:48]
A
Paul Giamatti.
- [129:50]
B
Because I think he's got a real bite to him. Paul.
- [129:54]
A
Paul Giamatti can do anything. And so I'm. When you say he could have some bite to him, he does. He absolutely has razor sharp teeth if he wanted to use them.
- [130:05]
B
And like a Boring answer is Bryan Cranston.
- [130:08]
A
Yeah, that is a boring answer. Would be totally fine. I think Giamatti is a. Is a better one. I would be interested to see how she know. Would I? I don't know. I take it back.
- [130:20]
B
Who is yours? Well, I was just responding to me.
- [130:23]
A
No, I didn't write anything down. I wanted to hear yours and see what I, what I came up with. I. For a second, for five seconds I thought Steve Carell, I did not love him and Uncle Vanya. And in fact, I actually think that he's at his weakest when he's doing quote unquote, serious stuff. But part of me is like, I feel like he does have that in him.
- [130:43]
B
I also thought like Tony Shalhoub.
- [130:49]
A
Yeah.
- [130:49]
B
Or John Turturro.
- [130:52]
A
The thing is, like, there are so many ways to approach Roy in a way that I feel like there are fewer ways to approach someone like Belize or Pryor. Like there's the Ron Lehman who went very theatrical, larger than life, Shakespearean. You have Pacino who went far, full on charisma and dropped in subtlety. And I am ashamed to say this, I forgot for a moment how great Pacino is in the HBO miniseries. He's amazing for everyone in it is great in various ways. And any criticisms I have of people like Kirk or Shenkman, they are criticisms of what are still extraordinarily wonderful performances. But yeah, like I, whenever, whenever I think about that series, I usually think about, honestly Mary Louise Parker. And then I come back to it and I'm like, oh, Pacino and Meryl are incredible in this.
- [131:48]
B
Yeah.
- [131:48]
A
Meryl remains my favorite in that track. Anyway. Yeah.
- [131:52]
B
So for some of the younger roles, I was like, I need some theater people. So the only Brit I'm allowing in this. And you can roll your eyes at me all you want, but I'm casting Jonathan Bailey as Prior.
- [132:07]
A
Okay.
- [132:09]
B
Based on his performance in the independent British television show Rooming. Rooming.
- [132:19]
A
Oh, the Phoebe Waller Bridge thing.
- [132:21]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [132:21]
A
What's it called?
- [132:22]
B
Grounded Rooming.
- [132:23]
A
What's it called? Crashing.
- [132:24]
B
Crashing.
- [132:25]
A
Yeah. Where they're all in the hospital. Yeah, yeah.
- [132:27]
B
For Joe Tony Award winner Andrew Burnett.
- [132:32]
A
Fuck yeah.
- [132:33]
B
And who's about, you know, who's. Who's making his way on tv. And then for Louis, I just went with my dream man, Brandon Uranowitz.
- [132:41]
A
Yeah.
- [132:41]
B
I think he's got that Tony Award cred that he could do it. And then for Belize, there's two directions we could go. And we're, we'll get into conversations like, do gay People have to be playing these gay roles ideally. But then also sometimes we've got Jeffrey Wright.
- [132:59]
A
Yeah.
- [133:00]
B
So like the Jeffrey Wright version of this is Brian Tyree Henry. The more authentic choice here is I would give it to Tony Award winner Jay Harrison.
- [133:13]
A
G. Sure.
- [133:16]
B
For the angel I went with Pulitzer finalist Taylor Mack. I do. I'm really interested in the angel as played by a non binary actor.
- [133:28]
A
Yeah. I mean they are essentially non binary themselves. The angels.
- [133:35]
B
Exactly.
- [133:36]
A
That's like the whole point is that they are both genders and God split genders because he got bored with the angels.
- [133:42]
B
Exactly. For Harper there I have two. And with age, I understand we're going crazy with age. She's maybe too old for it, but fuck if I would have wanted to see Greta Gerwig play Harper. And then my A list. A list. Two time Academy Award winner choice is Emma Stone.
- [134:06]
A
Ah.
- [134:08]
B
And then for Hannah I have two. The choice that I think is actually maybe too old.
- [134:13]
A
Uh huh.
- [134:14]
B
But would do it is Gene smart. And then a kookier option is like what about like Melissa Leo?
- [134:27]
A
Oh my God.
- [134:29]
B
I think that Jean Smart. If, if it's. We're okay with her being a little older. That's a good choice.
- [134:35]
A
Now I'm just. Jean Smart is Ethel Rosenberg. My God, did I pick. Is that everyone?
- [134:39]
B
Yeah, that's everyone. So that's what I. That's what I came up with.
- [134:42]
A
Yeah.
- [134:42]
B
Oh my God. I want people to comment, obviously. Well, you'll do this with all of your guests but like flood the comments with your dream casts.
- [134:49]
A
Yeah. Well, so let's. While we do that, can we talk a little bit about sort of what, what to think about when you are considering casting these roles? Like what is important to you?
- [134:58]
B
I know and I was like, for every, like, for like Brandon Uranowitz, Emma Stone, Jay Harrison G, Brian Terry Henry, Jonathan Bailey. Everyone here has stage experience.
- [135:11]
A
Yes.
- [135:11]
B
Like that was most important to me. Maybe not Melissa Leo, but I'm sure she's done stage. I think like, and like when we think about. I don't know, I just think, I.
- [135:30]
A
Think it's gotta be.
- [135:32]
B
There's a large S here, right?
- [135:34]
A
Yeah.
- [135:35]
B
Like this language cannot be underplayed. You have to meet it where it is.
- [135:41]
A
The first thing I need to make sure is that everyone I cast has the ability to understand comedy. Because I didn't actually say this before when people were asking one of my issues about the national theater broadcast, I hinted at it a little bit. I found it far more analytical of a production. It is quite British. After all, I didn't find it terribly funny. And Angels is extraordinarily funny.
- [136:07]
B
Yeah.
- [136:08]
A
Like all of the whole show in general, Blake. Millennium approaches especially. There are 5,000 laughs in it that people ignore because it has become such a sacred text, such a holy play, rightfully so. But that's also what makes it so brilliant, is how gut. Bustingly hilarious it can be and then devastatingly beautiful the next. Right. And I want to make sure that people who I cast can have a good handle on comedy, can find laughs. So that way they then know when to not go for the laugh.
- [136:41]
B
I think you also need to cast actors who understand ensemble for sure, because every single one of these characters is minor in a scene and you can't have someone who's trying to. Who can't blend in.
- [136:58]
A
Yeah, lack of ego.
- [137:01]
B
Yeah, lack of ego.
- [137:02]
A
Yeah. It's. It's the Joanna Gleason Tony speech. Right. Of the. We are trapeze artists and we're all catching each other. Sometimes you're the one flying, sometimes you're the one doing the catching. And like, because everyone gets 50 dozen moments to shine, which means they have 50 dozen moments where they have to support someone else. Yeah, totally. Okay. I like the idea of. One reason I like the idea of Emma Stone as Harper is those big eyes.
- [137:28]
B
She's got big eyes.
- [137:28]
A
Those big eyes. Harper is interesting because you have to be delicate, but you also have to have some sort of resolve because she.
- [137:37]
B
Well, the. The British choice is Emma Corrin.
- [137:40]
A
That's a good one. That's a good one. It's the whole. Can navigate a Valium haze while also heckling a Mormon diorama. Joe. It is in the text that he is butch and he's all American looking and very handsome. And I think part of that. Part of the reason why that's important is it's easy for Lewis to get wrapped up in the sex haze with, like, someone who is very pretty, especially after coming off of seeing his lover lose everything that made him so attractive to him, to someone who's in prime health. And I'm sure this doesn't escape his brain either. The fact that Joe is a gay virgin, meaning that he is without a doubt free of. Of hiv. Right.
- [138:31]
B
Which is me. Which is. Which. Which is why the freak out that he's been with, theoretically, has been with Roy, is the thing that puts Lewis over the edge. Yeah, well, yeah.
- [138:44]
A
Yeah. One wonders if he genuinely thinks. If he. If he and Roy. If Joe and Roy. Or if it's just the relationship at all that, that is the straw.
- [138:57]
B
I mean, the length. There's language about like, did you put his dick?
- [139:01]
A
Yeah, but you, but, yeah, but you wonder if that's antagonizing or real. But. And I think to credit both of us and Kushner, it can go either way. You can play it either way. But someone like Lee Pace, who is so tall and so all American, like, that is a lot of Joe, because so many, for all the talk of, like, this is American and that's America. Like, Joe is what a character like Roy Cohn looks at and thinks, that's America. But the truth is all the characters are America because they are Americans, and America is truly a melting pot. But that is sort of the poster boy of it. So I think Andrew Burnap, with his pretty, pretty face and very good acting would be good not to, not to be, like, super shallow about this shit. Like, I would love it if he put on, like 10 pounds because he's just so petite. Just so. He's more Marlboro man, but I don't know. I would get lost in that man's eyes. And you and I are both Louis's at heart. So ultimately it's. Who would Alex Weissman and I fuck for three weeks without stopping? Yeah. Yeah.
- [140:06]
B
I mean, we've talked about this before, but my, my professional brand is not necessarily fuckable, so it's hard for me to see myself in those roles.
- [140:15]
A
He says is. His legs are so widespread right now.
- [140:18]
B
Okay.
- [140:20]
A
Swaying back.
- [140:21]
B
I, I, I think I'm very sexy. I'm, I'm dateable. I'm fuckable.
- [140:26]
A
I think that's why I should get back to the stage, Alex, because I am incredibly fuckable and I just, the world needs to see my face and body again, not just hear my voice.
- [140:35]
B
Yeah, that'd be, that, that's, that's your community service.
- [140:39]
A
It is. And Lewis is one of the few men in the show that doesn't get fully naked. So. Modesty.
- [140:43]
B
Yeah. In that way I could do it.
- [140:45]
A
Yeah. The modesty of that is okay with me. Do you have other Joes besides Andrew Burnap in mind?
- [140:52]
B
See, the problem is I, whenever I think of, like, great actors, I just go British and I. What's, what is important to me is that there is, there's a real American ness to this play.
- [141:03]
A
Yeah.
- [141:05]
B
My friend Dave Register.
- [141:06]
A
Mm.
- [141:08]
B
He was in Potter with me. He did Leopoldstadt. He's on the Fallout series now. He would be an incredible Joe. He's, he's not queer at all. But I think in Some ways with Joe, you get away with that the most.
- [141:23]
A
Yeah.
- [141:25]
B
So Dave, if this ever finds you, just know that like in my head you'd be the perfect.
- [141:30]
A
You'd be the perfect Joe Louis. Ultimately you're looking for us.
- [141:35]
B
I know, but like the famous us. Gideon could do it. Yeah, he's a little sweet.
- [141:42]
A
Yeah. I was about to say, I think you want to push it a bit with Lewis. Find someone who's not overly endearing.
- [141:49]
B
I mean, you know, it would be a really interesting. Put fire under this person and be like you're a great actor and no one's given you a chance to be an actor with a capital A. Is Ben Platt. Yeah.
- [142:06]
A
Yeah.
- [142:06]
B
If he can strip it down.
- [142:10]
A
He.
- [142:11]
B
The things that made him an incredible Leo Frank would make him an incredible Lewis.
- [142:16]
A
Well, that's where you go, who's the director that's gonna get that out of you?
- [142:20]
B
Maybe it's Michael Arden. I mean, I would love to see Michael Arden's Angels in America.
- [142:24]
A
Yeah, I think that's the other thing I'll say is I think that.
- [142:28]
B
Okay, now this is weird. Weird, weird.
- [142:30]
A
Uh huh.
- [142:32]
B
But like Joe, Darren Criss. The thing about Joe is you have to walk on stage. And unlike Lewis and unlike Prior, you have to be instantly likable. You have to be un. Non threatening. You have to just like you have. We have to assume right away. It's like the, like the. There's a purity. Because so much of that track, so much of it is like watching a white sheet get stains on it, right?
- [143:08]
A
Oh, absolutely. That's a great image I viewed. Joe is to me and this. It's sort of like the. A physical. A large physical presence who doesn't take up a lot of space as opposed to someone like a Lewis or a Prior who are more small in stature but take up a lot of space.
- [143:26]
B
Okay, I've got one more crazy one. Yeah, Mike. Feisty.
- [143:31]
A
That's not bad. That's not bad at all. What I was gonna say in regards to Michael Arden for a quick second.
- [143:38]
B
Oh yeah.
- [143:39]
A
My other hot take is I think the best production of Angels are directed by directors who are also good at doing musicals.
- [143:45]
B
Well, I also think the best acting in Angels are by people who have. Who've do. I mean this. Nevermind. Erase.
- [143:54]
A
You were gonna say people who've been in musicals.
- [143:55]
B
Yeah, but I don't know that I mean that.
- [143:57]
A
No, I think that you have to have musical. You don't have to have been in a musical.
- [144:02]
B
I just think that generally speaking. Oh no, I absolutely don't mean this. Never mind.
- [144:06]
A
I think there's. There's something. So much of the dialogue is poetry. And poetry has a way to scan similar to a lyric. You don't have to be a singer, you don't have to be a dancer, you don't have to have ever been in a musical. But you have to have some sort of musical intuition. That is what I mean. Especially by directors, because you look at the original Broadway production directed by George C. Wolfe. The production from the national that transferred was Marianne Elliott. Both of them also won Tonys for directing musicals. The original London production in the 90s by Declan Donnell, I think was his name. He did the Sweeney Todd with Julian Mackenzie. Like David Cromer did it in Chicago and David Cromer did Band's Visit. Like, you don't have to be mostly musical guy who. Or person who does a play, but you have to be able to weave in and out of both. I mean, there are some of the best stage directors we've ever had have won Tonys for both plays and musicals.
- [145:03]
B
Oh, I thought of another Prior.
- [145:04]
A
Yeah.
- [145:07]
B
Who I think is the best actor in New York City.
- [145:09]
A
Me. No.
- [145:10]
B
Ryan Spahn.
- [145:12]
A
Who?
- [145:13]
B
Ryan Spahn, the best actor in New York City.
- [145:16]
A
What would I have seen Ryan in?
- [145:17]
B
He was in Gloria. He's currently in the Antiquities. He's Michael Urie's partner.
- [145:22]
A
Yes. Okay, okay, okay. Oh, Michael Urie was Borrell's replacement at Signature, by the way.
- [145:29]
B
Yeah.
- [145:30]
A
I didn't see him, but he was. Yeah.
- [145:36]
B
I mean, Michael Uri is a great choice too.
- [145:38]
A
Yeah.
- [145:39]
B
Again, and I say this as a person who's my age as well, but like, where are our. Like we maybe want them to be like 30 to 35.
- [145:50]
A
Yeah.
- [145:51]
B
Which I am not.
- [145:53]
A
But. But also we're talking 1985. 30 to 35. So you're not necessarily actually 30, looking like a 30 year old today. The point of Prior is. Yeah.
- [146:04]
B
Rue McClanahan was 48 in season one of the Golden Girls.
- [146:07]
A
Exactly. Like you're, we're. You can, you can cast a little older, but we're not casting a 50 year old as Prior because part of the whole reason of Prior's journey and his request to the angels that the end of Perestroika is more life. I have more life to give. And of course that's true of many ages, but it has a specific tragedy when you are 30. As he says in the dream robbed of decades of majesty. I feel like there's a never ending list of actresses to play Hannah Pitt and that whole track of just women. We were like, we keep sleeping on you. Let's have you.
- [146:43]
B
Yeah, but who is just now old enough to do it? In my head, I was like, is Amy Adams still too young?
- [146:53]
A
Amy Adams reads younger than she is, is the thing.
- [146:55]
B
Yeah. How old does Hannah have to be?
- [146:57]
A
We think 60, I would say 60. Yeah.
- [147:00]
B
So then definitely not Amy Adams or like.
- [147:03]
A
No, maybe not. Maybe not. She could be in her mid-50s. You know, who's too old to do it now and would have been, but would have been amazing 20 years ago? Tyne Daly.
- [147:12]
B
Yeah. Couldn't do it now.
- [147:14]
A
Far too old now.
- [147:15]
B
I mean, what about Amy Ryan? Speaking of Tyne Daily.
- [147:23]
A
Yeah. Let's go for it. Why not?
- [147:24]
B
Is Jodie Comer too old to plea Harper?
- [147:27]
A
British. British.
- [147:28]
B
Because if we're going British, I would also throw out Vanessa Kirby.
- [147:34]
A
I think Jodie Comer, I think, is at that sweet spot. Spot where, depending on who you cast around her, she can work it. It depends on who her Jo is. If her Jo is someone a little taller, then. Yes. Like I. Like. I don't think I would put Andrew Burnup opposite her. I think Andrew is a little too frail. Physically opposite Jody Comer. You need someone like. Not him exactly, but like. Like a Paul Mescal.
- [148:02]
B
I know. Paul Mascal. Exactly right. But American Paul Mescal ain't it yet.
- [148:08]
A
Yeah.
- [148:09]
B
I keep coming back to this Mike Feist idea.
- [148:11]
A
I'm not mad about it.
- [148:17]
B
Oh, you know who would be a good Harper? Lauren Patton.
- [148:22]
A
Sure. Yeah. I get a little bit of food poisoning with anyone associated with Jagged Little Pill, but I have to remind myself, no one in Jagged Little Pill wrote Jagged Little Pill. And so I have to separate my feelings on that show from the actors. Yes, Lauren Patton would be a very good Harper. That's what we call guys working in real time through your emotions. I'm trying to think other directors I would like to see tackle it. I think Arden is a very good choice.
- [148:51]
B
I mean, you know who'd be a crazy Hannah is Patti LuPone.
- [148:55]
A
Get the fuck off my lawn.
- [148:56]
B
I know. There's nothing Mormony about her.
- [148:59]
A
Patti LuPone is Roy Cohn, I think is a much better choice. That is a better choice.
- [149:04]
B
Well, you know, it'd be an interesting angel who. Very different tactic. Bonnie Milligan.
- [149:12]
A
Yeah, well, because then you have to think about all the other roles.
- [149:15]
B
I know. I'm like. I'm like, Bonnie Milligan is the homeless lady. Bonnie Milligan is the nurse. Bonnie Milligan would be amazing as the Nurse.
- [149:21]
A
She would be amazing as the nurse we would have to put back in the line that I also realized isn't actually in the play. They just had it in the miniseries, which is when again, Hannah brings Prior to the hospital and the nurse is checking him out and he's like, I can't breathe. And Hannah goes, you'd breathe better if you weren't yelling. And Prior says, this is my ex lover's lover's Mormon mother. And the nurse just sort of looks at her and shrugs.
- [149:43]
B
And who's the nurse in the miniseries?
- [149:45]
A
It's Emma Thompson.
- [149:46]
B
It is Emma Thompson.
- [149:47]
A
Yeah. And Emma Thompson. But in the miniseries they give her a line. So as opposed to the stage show where she sort of hears that and shrugs. Emma Thompson hears, this is my ex lover's mother's Mormon mother. She looks at her and goes, even for New York in the 80s, that's weird. I like that line a lot. We would have to give that to Bonnie Milligan. Is there a. I'm trying to get back to this. Is there a director that you would love to see challenged by doing Angels? We've already said Arden.
- [150:16]
B
Uh huh. Challenged, meaning it's not an obvious fit for them.
- [150:20]
A
Yeah. That you think maybe they could rise to the occasion.
- [150:25]
B
Sam Pinkleton.
- [150:27]
A
Ooh, I like that.
- [150:32]
B
Based on everything I've seen and everything I haven't seen. Like the photos from this Le Cage.
- [150:39]
A
Mm.
- [150:40]
B
And I like. And the few times I've met Sam socially, like, I kind of think they're our next genius.
- [150:49]
A
I love the comedy that they did with.
- [150:53]
B
Omari.
- [150:53]
A
Omari. Yeah. And they're. And they. He. Sam did the choreography for Great Comet, right?
- [150:59]
B
Yep.
- [151:00]
A
Yep. Yeah, I'm down for that. I'm so down for that. And again, comes from both the now officially the musical and the play world. Throw them together, baby. Throw them together. Because every dramatic director I can think of who has done a musical or two, I feel like Will Lose wouldn't be able to get a handle on the musicality of it. So Sam paints.
- [151:25]
B
You also just want to think about, like, who did it? Like, who are the people who made it? Like, they were not. They didn't already have Tony's.
- [151:34]
A
No.
- [151:35]
B
Like, but.
- [151:36]
A
Well, they were up.
- [151:37]
B
They were like the next. They were like. They were like, look, we were looking at the horizon being like, that person is exciting. That person is exciting.
- [151:45]
A
The only person in the original Broadway production, actually, the only two people in the original Broadway production who were established were Ron Liebman and George C. Wolfe. And George C. Wolfe.
- [151:53]
B
Was not even Kathleen Chalfont.
- [151:55]
A
Kathleen Chalfont kind of came out of nowhere. I mean, she'd been working, but they say, because she got on board with that show immediately, like, from the very first workshop or reading at the Eureka. Because Kathleen, Steven Spinella and Ellen McLaughlin were like, the only three who were there from the very beginning to Broadway. And they all say about Kathleen at that first reading, they're like, who the fuck is this woman? Like, how have we never heard of her before? She's incredible.
- [152:18]
B
Yeah, because.
- [152:20]
A
Yeah, because it went through a whole bunch of different people. And by the time we did get to Broadway, they went with George, they said, because they wanted a. Someone with some Broadway experience, but also they really liked the idea of a prominent black artist doing this work. They're like, we have this queer story having a queer black man who, like, we're all in on. Because he had just done Jelly's Last Jam. The season before Colored Museum had blown up, like, four years prior to that. So he was established in the sense that his feet were fully wet. But he wasn't like George C. Wolf, exactly. He was like. It was the level. It was the layup to the right dunk. So, yeah, I think getting people who are on the precipice of being the pillars of the establishment are who we want.
- [153:13]
B
I'm looking something up in the book. I'm so sorry.
- [153:15]
A
That's fine. We gotta start wrapping things up soon, I believe. I'm just trying to think of any other things we need to cover. As I told you during the break, Alex, so the listeners can hear. I am not worried about not covering everything on this episode. We've got at least two more to go. I just want to make sure that you feel whole by the time we finish that. You got a lot out or as much out as you. As you could.
- [153:40]
B
Yeah. I think, as with all great pieces of art, your response to this play is going to be so personal and say more about you than it does about it. And I just encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to watch that HBO miniseries. If you live in New York and you know me a little bit, DM me, come over, watch the NT live. I have it.
- [154:09]
A
He does.
- [154:11]
B
I just think it's really a play that feels really alive right now.
- [154:19]
A
In addition to the fact that it's just the easiest version to get your hands on. Is there anything about the HBO version in hindsight, now that you have so much more exposure to the play that you think how it handles the material that you think would be good for a first time viewer.
- [154:35]
B
If you're scared of gay people, it's a little hetero. Listen, I do think that there is something that gets lost in translation by putting it on screen because it is an inherently theatrical piece of writing. But the things that are gained by putting it on screen make it a uniquely cinematic experience to watch. And so I think when we say accessible, I mean that not just in the. Like, we can go to hbo. We can go to like hbo, Max. But also, like, it does a lot of help. It literalizes a lot of things that can feel abstract if you're reading the play for the first time or watching the play for the first time.
- [155:24]
A
I agree with that. I also think it is one of the more. Just by the benefit of it being on film is one of the more humanely intimate approaches to the material. It really reminds you that it is ultimately about people. It's. It's about people who are very smart, if not necessarily overly extraordinary in the grand scheme of the world, but dealing with tectonic shifts like the rest of the world. And we're watching it through their experience. And I appreciate that.
- [155:56]
B
Yeah, I've got one more weird one.
- [155:58]
A
He's got one more weird one.
- [156:00]
B
Danya Tamer. I would watch her. I'd be interested in her production based on the things that I loved the most about the Outsiders and Jonah. I would be very interested to see her take on this.
- [156:18]
A
I was very. I could not tell you how thrilled I was for her, Tony, when I thought it was so richly deserved. And I also adored Jonah. So I, in my classic sort of rule of threes, I'm like, I just. I'm gonna give one more and then I'll be like. So I'm gonna wait to see how John Proctor is the villain. Turns out someone was telling me that, that it's. That it's a good play. And I'm sure that it is, as I already said on this podcast in the Tony Prediction speech, Tony Prediction episode, that the premise of that play sounds like my nightmare. But if it proves me wrong, I will be thrilled.
- [156:55]
B
Yeah, people are really excited about it. My friend Dave, who I think should play Joe, did that play in D.C.
- [157:01]
A
And he liked it.
- [157:02]
B
Yeah, great.
- [157:03]
A
Then I hope, I really fucking hope it proves me wrong. And it's wonderful because I will say.
- [157:07]
B
In response to what you just said, I have my 3D. I've got Passover, the Outsiders and Jonah.
- [157:12]
A
And I'm. See, I'm one behind you. I'm so uncultured, so I just need my. One more, and then I'm good. All right. I don't. I don't even need John to be amazing. I just. I need it to not be her bounced check. I just needed to do okay, and then I'll be totally on board, which is. Which sounds super prejudice on my part. It's just, like, I've given my heart to creatives in the past before because of, like, a really early start, and then I've never gotten fulfillment after, so it's just me protecting my own heart. So once I get the third one, I'll be. I'll be Team Danya pretty much forever.
- [157:47]
B
Oh, I've got another crazy Roy Cohn idea. Sean Hayes.
- [157:53]
A
I'm honestly more excited by the idea of Patti LuPone as Roy Cone.
- [157:57]
B
God, who else?
- [157:58]
A
Like, everyone and no one. That's the problem.
- [158:01]
B
I know. Justice Smith. Did you see. I saw the TV glow?
- [158:06]
A
No, but I've heard amazing things. I know.
- [158:08]
B
I think they're probably too young to play Belize, but in maybe five years, they could play Belize. Are there any other roles other than Belize that can be played by an actor of color?
- [158:20]
A
Could the angel kind of the only thing that the character. The track that the angel plays, besides the nurse and the homeless woman also plays the Mormon realtor, but they don't necessarily have to be Mormon, so that can work, I suppose. Everything else, it's like, if you were to cast it interracially, it would have to be a point you're making with this theme. It also undercuts the individuality of Belize in this story, who has a very big punchline of just like my. What is this? I'm a black person in a sea of white people. That's my problem. All right, Alex. Anything else?
- [159:04]
B
I look forward to the next time I get to see a new production of it.
- [159:07]
A
As do I. Also, I'll say this for anyone who has been interested in diving into angels and maybe finds it intimidating or overwhelming, the very fact that I'm doing at least three episodes on it should tell you that, like, you're not gonna get all of it on first watch. You're not gonna get all of it on your 90th watch. I don't. There are even things that I don't think Kushner intended that just through the magic of the cosmos, created certain moments on its own. And there are intricacies that people keep finding every day. It's a massive canvas with so many amazing artists who touched it. So, like, there are so many. So many intricacies. To find and that's exciting. So don't, don't be overwhelmed. Just, just dive in and enjoy. And you'll keep finding new amazing things as you keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Again, Alex, delightful. Where can people find you if you want them to find you?
- [160:04]
B
Okay, find me on the Internet. I'm on Instagram Elawu. It's X, E L A W U U. I made it when I was 8 years old is my AIM screen name. It's Alex backwards plus W for William plus U plus U which is W for Wiseman. And that's a little hint into how crazy I am.
- [160:24]
A
Woohoo. If you want to follow me, I am on Instagram only. Matt Koplik. The usual spelling. If you like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating or review. We got a review a little while ago but I hadn't recorded so I should give it its due now. Cue the Light in the Piazza Overture, baby. Five stars. Entertaining and informative. I have learned so much about theater through this podcast. The three hour episodes fly by. I don't agree with a lot of Matt's opinions, but I love to hear a different perspective. Thank you very much Yelich22. I think that is the perfect mentality to have when listening to anything about theater. Different perspectives can often hone your own. Join us next week for our next Angels in America episode, most likely with podmother Ali Gordon. And until then. Yeah, we'll see you next week, Alex. We close out every week with a diva. Who do you want to close out with? 2D.
- [161:20]
B
Oh, I. I was thinking about this on my way here. What I wanted to say. Oh, let's do Meryl singing Winner Takes it All. Because she won that Emmy.
- [161:31]
A
She did one of. Honestly, one of my favorite intros to any acceptance speech. Meryl winning the Emmy for Angels in.
- [161:37]
B
America and like shitting on Emma Thompson as a joke.
- [161:40]
A
Oh, that's amazing too. Oh, remind. I don't know if I told you this, but I have a conspiracy theory about her and Meryl Streep, her and Mary Louise Parker. But no, Meryl goes to the stage and she goes. You know, there are days when even I think that I'm overrated. But not today. It's so good. I love her. Alright, so Meryl Dune, Winner takes it all. That'll be it. So we'll see you guys next week. Take it away, Muriel.
- [162:04]
B
Bye. When I take it all.
- [162:21]
A
The game is on again. The winner takes it all.