Sock ‘n’ Buskin’s first production of the decade, Angels in America, hit a chord with every audience member and covered a heavy topic, sparkling it with occasional notes of humour.
The simple set of the Sock ‘n’ Buskin production, directed by Gabrielle Goudie, divided the stage in half with an old park bench in the centre, representing a bridge between the two worlds. One world shows Joe and Harper Pitts, a straight, Mormon couple trying to balance Harper’s addiction and agoraphobia with Joe’s conflicted sexuality.
Meanwhile, a second couple faces the AIDS epidemic head on and watches it tear apart their relationship. As Prior Walters’s health and sanity is in decline, his boyfriend, Louis Ironson pulls away and fixates on broad questions of justice and racism, while refusing to answer to the man he loves.
Sock ‘n’ Buskin pulled together a strong cast but no one stood out as much as Sheldon Parathundyil as Prior Walter. Parathundyil perfectly embodied the ex-drag queen sass at the beginning of the play and the crumbling, sickly shell of a man at the end–as well as everything in between. In the most powerful scene nearing the end of the second act, the audience watches Prior suffer–deep in the agony of his diagnosis–while his boyfriend, on the other side of the stage, is bonding with another man over the complexities and tragedies of life.
Thomas Williams, playing Louis Ironson, brings the otherwise timeless set into the late-80s with his baggy blue jeans and puffy windbreaker. Williams’ performance made it hard to dislike his character, even though he abandons Prior in his time of need. His long monologues about the afterlife and justice could have been a drag, but Williams made it feel like a window into his mind as he tried to process his situation.
Chris McNeice and Sam Foster, who respectively played Joe Pitts and Roy Cohn, are strong contrasts: one is polite and confused, while the other is sleazy and conniving. However, they both work hard to conceal their homosexuality, knowing that coming out as gay would destroy their lives. Both actors expressed their characters’ anger through bursts of passion, taking control of the stage.
Delaney Haugen as Harper Pitts took her character on long tangents riddled with fear, and every interaction with her husband is tense. The supporting cast brought echoes of silliness to the stage. The Plagued Priors (played by Sam Pomerant and Jeremy Garbe) especially brought out Kushner’s comedy. Zayd Bille waltzed into Haugen’s anxiety-induced (and inducing) hallucinations, comforting both Harper Pitts and the audience.
After witnessing the apocalyptic ending, it would be hard for anyone to leave the room without lingering thoughts about love, guilt, and suffering. The cast and crew of Sock ‘n’ Buskin presented a window into the broken-up gay community in the late-80s, and addressed relevant questions that we should still be discussing as we enter a new decade.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
