TV Eye

Jeffrey Wright in Angels in America

After watching the HBO production of Angels in America -- for all its faults and annoyances, its unrelenting attention to the crass and sensational -- I'm reminded all over again why TV can matter.

I, like many U.S. viewers I suspect, have never seen the stage production of Tony Kushner's Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America. The two-part play (Millennium Approaches and Perestroika), first produced in 1992, is subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes." And a true epic it is, a richly knit tapestry weaving American history, the real and the fantastic, the expansiveness and limits of faith and love, truth and denial, the brutal manipulations of powerful men, and the unheralded compassion of others. That's Angels in America, in one, ecstatic nutshell.

The essential story follows two couples, one gay, one straight; Roy Cohn (based on the real figure); Mormon women; a gay male nurse; and the specters that haunt them in the wake of the Reagan years. As Frank Rich pointed out in his New York Times column two Sundays ago, it's baffling that the torchbearers who bullied CBS to drop The Reagans from its sweeps lineup are silent on Angels in America. Make no mistake, Kushner's brilliant script (which he adapted for the HBO film), is a scathing indictment of the Reagan administration, particularly of its cold shoulder toward the blooming AIDS crisis in the mid-Eighties. But as I was watching the HBO film, it occurred to me that maybe the torchbearers have been silent because they hear Kushner's commentary as high praise. Perhaps that's the mark of true artistic genius -- that he can make friend and foe listen. The conclusions they come to are their own, but no one can say they did not hear the messenger.

As for the HBO movie, there are a few things I wonder if a TV audience will swallow. The first is Kushner's poetic language. While I was enchanted, I did find myself wondering: Does it sound too "theatrical" on the small screen? After a steady diet of casual to crass TV talk, it's a joy to hear characters talking with such depth and magic. And while contemporary audiences tend to value high-dollar special effects, the spectacle of the Angel's appearance is somehow less spectacular on screen -- not just because it's the small screen, but because, I suspect, the magic that comes with seeing how it's enacted live, on stage, is muted.

The performances are uniformly, unabashedly, be-still-my-heart superb. Al Pacino (Roy Cohn), Mary-Louise Parker (Harper Pitt), and Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson (in multiple roles) are extraordinary. But I was most moved by some of the lesser-known actors, particularly Jeffrey Wright (also in multiple roles) whose Z-snapping Belize takes no crap but is capable of saintlike kindness. Justin Kirk, Ben Shenkman, and Patrick Wilson, as the three points of a lover's triangle, give compelling, tender, often wrenching performances.

Stage plays adapted to film are not always successful. Fortunately, Angels lends itself well to film, with some changes from the original script. Perhaps in an effort to mimic the pageantry of the original, director Mike Nichols sometimes overstates certain visuals, particularly in Millennium Approaches. Cutaways to bacteria under a microscope or swirling stars in space are as necessary as a poke in the eye. While I imagine the end of Perestroika plays well on stage, it comes off a bit coy on the small screen. But I didn't mind. I was too busy weeping. Not tears induced from a perfectly concocted melodrama, but from the realization that I had witnessed a vision made manifest, right there on my small screen.

HBO's Angels in America is a six-hour movie event. Millennium Approaches premieres Sunday, Dec. 7 at 7pm. Perestroika premieres the following Sunday, Dec. 14 at 7pm. After the premiere, both parts will air in single chapter increments (approximately an hour each). The airdates are as follows:

Millennium Approaches: Chapter 1 airs Dec. 8 at 7pm, Dec. 11 at 9pm, and Dec. 22 at 10pm. Chapter 2 airs Dec. 9 at 7pm, Dec. 12 at 9pm, and Dec. 22 at 11am. Chapter 3 airs Dec. 10 at 7pm, Dec. 13 at 9pm, and Dec. 23 at 10pm.

Perestroika: Chapter 4 airs Dec. 15 at 7pm, Dec. 18 at 9pm, and Dec. 29 at 10pm. Chapter 5 airs Dec. 16 at 7pm, Dec. 19 at 9pm, and Dec. 29 at 11pm. Chapter 6 airs Dec. 17 at 7pm, Dec. 20 at 9pm, and Dec. 30 at 10pm.

Other airdates occur throughout December on HBO2 and HBO Signature. Check local listings for information.