About the performance
Tony Kushner's play Angels in America, subtitled as a "gay fantasia on national themes" and consisting of two parts, Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, first appeared on theatre stages in the early 1990s (1991 and 1992, first in San Francisco, a year later in London, and a year after that in New York), and immediately established itself as the most representative, and in many people's opinion the best, American play of the last decades. This reputation has also been confirmed by numerous productions in European theatres - in Slovenia, surprisingly, it only appeared for the first time three decades after its premiere, although the first part was published in book form as early as 2001 (American Drama of the Twentieth Century, edited by Zdravko Duša). This reputation is not, of course, a given, and it is something of a marker in its own right. Angels is an explicitly gay play, its characters are predominantly gay, and their problems are gay problems - but only on the surface, in the same way that AIDS is, on the surface, a disease that primarily afflicts gay men and drug addicts. If it quickly becomes apparent that the problems of Kushner's gay characters may be universal, it is nevertheless important for his play to conform to a logic in which the representative image of a world (America) can most accurately be captured through a marginal group defined by a specific, currently acute problem. Certainly the reputation of Angels has a special significance because it has shown that America (or the USA) is best represented at a certain moment in time by a play about a group of gay men facing AIDS.
The AIDS epidemic, which spread in the early 1980s, profoundly shaped the last two decades of the last century. Its contagiousness and rapid spread, its high mortality rate, its unpredictable and often very distressing course and, above all, the long absence of a cure, have led to AIDS being labelled the plague of the 20th century. For many, it meant the end of a world, indeed of the free world (since, like the covid that is close to us today, it restricted contact and socializing); and, given that it occurred at the turn of the millennium (which is also important for Kushner), it also heralded the apocalypse and the end of all that is known. It was understood by many through a conservative moralistic prism, too many even as a punishment for a "sinful" life. Indeed, AIDS spread particularly rapidly in gay circles, indeed in circles of freer sexual practice and illicit substances, including in artistic circles, but soon elsewhere, first in the great cultural centers and later everywhere (not only in America, but also in Europe, so that today, when the Western world has almost completely controlled it, it would, to our shame, be rampaging through poor Africa, which lacks the means to buy sufficient medicine). As a ubiquitous and extremely dangerous epidemic, it was a major issue of the time, a metaphor for some, a problem that should have been tackled more seriously for others. It was certainly also the subject of numerous plays, more or less radical productions and performances, a multitude of films of all kinds, right up to Hollywood melodramas. All of this has often been aimed at raising awareness, eliminating prejudices and accumulating political capital in order to force society and the state to accept the epidemic as a common problem and to devote the specific resources needed for research and the production of cures. Unlike the epidemic of covid, which has plagued us in recent years, and to control which countries have in turn devoted enormous resources (symptomatic of the fact that the notorious US President, the heir apparent to Reagan, has hesitated to do so and to disseminate his grotesque recommendations), AIDS has for a long time been neglected by politics, relegated to the margins of the gay community, which is deemed unworthy of the state's concern. Kushner's play is also about this; through the motif of a hard-to-get cure that only the most privileged members of the establishment can access, who, even by hiding their sexual orientation, belong to the ruling and established positions of power. Despite this important difference, today's epidemic is in many ways reminiscent of the spread of AIDS (which is one of the reasons why Kushner's play has flooded the theatre stages again in recent years), especially in one main aspect: in an epidemic crisis, the problems that have burdened society before are drastically exacerbated.
That is the greatness of Kushner's Angels in America. The play, which has been recognized as the most important on the subject of AIDS, makes it clear that AIDS is a subject that intensifies many of the fundamental problems of America, indeed of the USA (for it is not a continent, but the civilizational and political fabric of the country that bears that name). Indirectly, these are problems that concern the modern world as a whole, since the USA is, by force and by the logic of its influence, but also through the still-operating mythology of the 'New World', the paradigmatic country of modernity (and indeed it turns out that, despite being so firmly rooted in America, the drama in many places touches on problems that are also ours, with the political at the forefront of them). In this sense, Aids is a symptom, a crisis that only serves to accentuate the permanent crisis of this world. Kushner pays great attention to his characters, their personal motives and their stories, which are dominated by unresolved love relationships and eroticism. He puts at the center two couples, a gay and a heterosexual one, both in the process of breaking up, during which they unexpectedly cross paths and bring other characters into the story of their agony. In doing so, he paints a broad and vivid picture of the contemporary urban world, in which individuals of all orientations and provenances are intertwined. He chooses them in such a way that, in addition to their own story, they represent different, in fact extremely diverse, segments of the supposed 'melting pot' of American society: Judaism and the European freethinking heritage, Mormons as representatives of a very specific American tradition and, on the other hand, the transvestite, the gay man and the woman, the mother and the beggar, the doctor... the reality horizon of this strange but symptomatic grouping is represented by the character of the corrupt right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn, the only one written based on a real person known from the political sphere (his story in the play consistently follows the details of real life). A thoroughly corrupt lawyer, closely connected to the levers of the greatest power in the country, also a closet homosexual, he represents in a paradigmatic way the tradition of the American Republicans who, since the infamous McCarthy (the McCarthy who led the witch-hunts in the 1950s), have more or less dominated the politics of the USA and the permanent crisis of this world. Against this figure of personified evil (who is not, by chance, a real person), the play sets another horizon: the transcendent and highly ambivalent figure of the angel who visits the sick protagonist. He embodies another, mysterious and complex tradition of communication with the (supposedly) godly, which aims at a deeper gaze and at transcending the entrapment in the already known. By demanding a halt to progress and the preservation of stativity, it seems problematic, yet its intervention allows for the opening up of a reality reduced to illness, universal decay and hopelessness. Although Prior - and the play with him - refuses his/her demand, it seems that it is the confrontation with the androgynous angel that forces a new understanding that allows this disintegrating society to regain its search for a more harmonious community.
Diana Koloini
About the author
Tony Kushner is a playwright who is well-known for creating provocative dramas that focus on AIDS, politics, and America's gay subculture. His plays have been the mainstay of his career since the early 1980s. His earliest published play was called The Age of Assassins (1982), but it is not one of his best-known works. Kushner is a prolific writer, having published over forty plays to date as well as numerous essays and screenplays. His seven-hour drama Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, impressed Broadway audiences when it was produced in the early 1990s, and a touring production of the play continued to win Kushner critical praise on stages worldwide. The play received both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and two Antoinette Perry ("Tony") awards for best play in 1993 and 1994, and was produced for television in 2003. Kushner has also adapted and translated some plays by other playwrights, including The Good Person of Szechwan and Mother Courage and Her Children, both by Bertolt Brecht, as well as S. Ansky's The Dybbuk and Corneille's The Illusion.
About the director
Ivica Buljan holds a degree in French and Comparative Literature from the University of Zagreb. He has worked as a theater critic and for the past 25 years he has been directing plays written by established authors such as M.Tsvetaeva, P.P. Pasolini, H. Muller, R. Walser, E. Jelinek, M. Krleža, H. Guibert, A. Hilling, D. Kiš, G. Strnis, R. Bolaña, F. Šovagović, I. Sajko, Z. Mesarić, D. Ugrešić, D. Karakaš, O. Savićević-Ivančević, G. Vojnović, T. Štivičić. He has directed in theaters in Slovenia, USA, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Belgium, Russia, Montenegro, Ivory Coast, Norway and Serbia. From 1998 to 2001. he was the Head of Drama of the Croatian National Theater in Split. He is the co-founder of Mini teater in Ljubljana and the Festival of World Theater in Zagreb. He received several Borštnik awards, the Sterija award, the Vjesnik award Dubravko Dujšin, the Branko Gavella Award, the Petar Brečić Award, the Havana City Medals and the highest recognition of the Republic of Slovenia in the field of art, the Prešern Fund Award. He was awarded the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, which the French Government awards to deserving individuals for their advocacy in the field of culture and art. From 2014 until 2022 he was the Head of Drama of the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb.
From the reviews
"In a performance as effective as Buljan's, the gaze of the spectator follows, in a sense, the repositioning of the social structure in relation to itself, since each time an event is happening, another event is always already pushing into it and undermining the meaning of the first. That is to say, we are observing the staging of the de-centredness of social formation on stage. Then, too, cultural identities are nothing essentialized, but are constructed simultaneously with the consolidation of social conflicts."(...) "'Angels' as a whole are based on strong and complexly constructed dramatic figures, whose dialogues, collectively and individually, achieve an anthological value. No direction can avoid this. And, of course, vice versa, only if the director pays enough attention to the play in the working process, can the result be what we see on the stage of the Mini teater." Blaž Gselman, Veza Sigledal
"All these changes could have gone wrong with a lot of basic material and multiple roles (including on the male side). Theoretically, the epic Angels are too much for the dimensions of the Mini teater - too big a plot, too many characters and actors ... But not for Ivica Buljan. His staging principle is not to remove, to cleanse, but to merge, to fuse, to cross over. The stage, which seems barely big enough for a single scene, becomes a jigsaw puzzle with several scenes, and the transitions and transfers of meaning grow from the structural to the thematic level. He manages density without measuring or confusion, and keeps the grotesque and the exaggerated from slipping into the banal. Five hours with one pause miraculously pass."(...) "The first Slovenian production of Angels in America is superbly directed and acted and, as befits this text, has every chance of becoming a hit." Petra Vidali, Večer
"The show goes by in a flash, and until the very end, it imbues the viewer with fundamental human questions. The Mini teater's small stage with its thoughtful set design (Aleksandar Denić) perfectly conveys the abundance of characters, locations and scenes. Here the director's skill shines through, as despite the rapid change of scenes, they flow into each other with a kind of sovereign ease, painting a balanced picture of the worlds of the real and the fantastic, the intimate and the political, the comic and the tragic." (...) "The outstanding cast, under the baton of director Buljan, is more than equal to the richness and complexity of the characters. Nejc Cijan Garlatti shines as Prior, a slightly posturing gay man with a wry sense of humour, who discovers unimaginable strength in himself as he faces the collapse of his body and his relationship. He and Petja Labović, who portrays Belize, a kind of rational counterbalance and moral support for the ailing Prior, conjure up a good deal of magic on stage. The young actor captures all the charisma and complexity of his character with both his sumptuous larger-than-life presence and his quiet, gentle and subtle expressions. Equally excellent are Saša Pavlin Stošić and Croatian actress Nina Violić as Harper and Hannah, the Mormon daughter-in-law and mother-in-law,, who experience an unexpected evolution from their apparent helplessness and entrapment in the shackles of faith and marriage through confronting their own desires." Dora Trček, Mladina
