Tony Kushner's Angels in America is that rare entity: a work for the stage that is profoundly moving yet very funny, highly theatrical yet steeped in traditional literary values, and
most of all deeply American in its attitudes and political concerns. In two full-length playsMillennium Approaches and PerestroikaKushner tells the story of a handful of
people trying to make sense of the world. Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose
wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn (a fictional re-creation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who
died of AIDS in 1986) and his attempts to remain in the closet while trying to find some sort of personal salvation in his beliefs.