I could talk a lot about the HBO presentation of ANGELS IN AMERICA adapted by Tony Kushner from his play and directed by Mike Nichols, a director who has proven has proven his chops with incisive dissections of the moral and political state of the nation with films such as CARNAL KNOWLEDGE and THE GRADUATE. There is much to say, from the way that the sweep of intertwined narratives exploring the gay condition at the end of the 20th century remains intact to the way that stories are as intimate and immediate as they were on stage. That the moment when Ethel Rosenberg gets the final word with Roy Cohn is as moving and as satisfying as ever. That the performances, especially Al Pacino as Cohn, the devil’s disciple whose rabidly anti-gay politics was at odds with his own homosexuality, tear up the screen. But anything I say about why this piece of theater inspires such passion in its audience and in those actors privileged to perform it pales somehow in comparison to what one of those actors told me in an interview. That would be James Cromwell, who plays the doctor tending to Cohn as he dies, angrily, of AIDS. Cromwell is a man committed to political causes and willing to do more than lend his name. I defer to his eloquence and to his passion in describing why ANGELS IN AMERICA is a remarkable piece of theater that has meaning for everyone, no matter what their condition, no matter what their politics.
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