Director: COVID experience makes 'Angels in America' drama relevant for wider audience

"Angels in America" is taking flight in Abilene, fruition of a goal for Abilene Community Theatre actor and director Keith May.

Before the pandemic, May had wanted to stage the Pulitzer-winning drama here. He was told, politely, it wasn't the time.

And then, he heard it was.

Abilene battling through COVID-19 confirmed it was time.

A grant application submitted by another ACT member - actor and onetime board chairperson Ginger Vinson, without his knowledge - was approved by Abilene Cultural Affairs Council. It provided the funding to do the show that focuses on the first years of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s.

The grant was OK'd prior to the pandemic but as all entertainment shut down, performance of "Angels" was pushed back.

In 2020, the broader nation experienced a health crisis. May himself was a COVID-19 victim, and that experience scared him. He was 4, he said, when AIDS emerged.

The timing was right to bring to the stage a powerful and, yes, controversial show in a largely conservative community that explores relationships, fears, triumphs, compassion and death.

Ultimately, the message is one of hope.

"Angels in America, Part one: Millennium Approaches," the first of two plays by Tony Kushner that go hand in hand on the subject, opens Thursday. It's only three evenings.

May said initial response - more advance tickets have been sold than for any show he has been part of, he said - suggests the second play, "Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika," at some point will be presented.

Now is the time

May knew what he was getting into.

He considers "Angels" an important work, but "we live in a fairly conservative part of the world," he said.

Early on, he agreed timing was important here.

His proposal to ACT was declined. But Vinson submitted a grant proposal that was approved.

"She called me and said, 'Are you sitting down?' I said, 'Yeah.' She said, 'Well, you're directing "Angels,"'" he said.

May would like to be on stage. In fact, he had considered himself for the lead character of Prior Walter, a gay man who contracts AIDS, informs his partner, Louis Ironson, who leaves him, and then withers away toward death during the play.

"Slims," May said of a term used to describe the physical condition.

But when Christian Jay auditioned, May ceded the role and gathered a cast to direct.

Coming out of a pandemic, though local cases have risen and deaths reported this week upped the Taylor County total to 651, now was a time to present "Angels."

"We all know what it's like to live through a pandemic," May said. "That was the centerpiece of why I pitched it the last time, during the height of COVID. To me, when I really started researching this play and researching the '80s and what communities went through with HIV and AIDS, it seems like the response the Reagan administration had was eerily similar to the administration's response to COVID.

"I thought since we've all been through all of this, it would be an important time to do it. It would be more relevant now than, say, five years ago. I got COVID. I was scared when I got the diagnosis."

With most people having had COVID or knowing someone who had, perhaps dying, "I think there is a little bit more empathy to be had now and understanding what these characters went through," May said.

'Melting pot' of actors tell real stories

The play is based on real-life stories and includes a real person, Roy Cohn (played by Al Pacino in the 2003 movie). Cohn made a name for himself as legal counsel for Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's and later worked for 30 years in New York City. His clients included Donald Trump.

He died of AIDS in 1986, but publicly denied the illness saying he had liver cancer.

Scot Miller, who recently had the male lead in "Hello, Dolly!", is Cohn on stage.

There are 10 speaking roles and six "mechanicals" - people dressed head to tie in black to assist in the storytelling.

May called the passion the cast has had spectacular.

"Our cast is composed of Republicans and Democrats, Christians and atheists, heterosexual and homosexual, nonbinary and transgender ... we are a true melting pot," May said.

The play begins with a rabbi, at the funeral of character Louis's grandmother, saying America is "the melting pot where nothing melted."

"We all managed to take our differences and mold them into this beautiful work of art," May said. "This melting pot melted."

AIDS isn't the only medical dilemma.

The wife of attorney Joe Pitt, who is Mormon and offended by Cohn's profanity, has her own issues. She is addicted to Valium and suffers anxiety and hallucinations.

In one, she meets Walter, who tells her that her husband is gay.

Joe, who is closeted, and Louis do meet and begin a relationship.

The entanglements continue and story unfolds, Walter telling his caretaker that voices are speaking to him.

This a work for the community

Director May emphasized this is a play for entire community to experience, with hopes of understanding emerging.

"This play represents America. It has something in it for everybody," he said.

"It's a heavy play," May admitted. But it's not "the gay AIDS play."

"Ultimately, this play is about what people do. How do they react when faced with the most dire circumstances? That just doesn't mean AIDS in this play. Everyone has all these trials they are going through.

"But there is this hope woven through it."

May paused.

"I want the stigma to be gone," he said. "I think this play can gives us hope, even though so many things are dark in it.

"I've had older gay guys comes up to me and say, 'Thank you for doing this. I watched my friends die. I had to take care of them because their families wouldn't.'

"I makes me happy it heals others. There still are angels in America."

Greg Jaklewicz is editor of the Abilene Reporter-News and general columnist. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.

If You Go

What: "Angels in America," summer special presentation through a grant from the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council, HeARTS for the ARTS and the city of Abilene.

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday

Where: Abilene Community Theatre, 809 Barrow St.

Tickets: $18 for adults, $15 for seniors, students and military

Note: Mature subject matter and sometimes intense profanity

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Director: COVID experience makes 'Angels in America' relevant for all