Rating: 
Summary: The 'Angels' have come!
Review: I'm a college student majoring in Theater Design. I had to read this play for one of my classes my freshman year. So I sat down expecting to plod through a story that I'd never read again. Boy was I shocked! I loved it! I couldn't put it down until I'd read the last page, and then I got right online and ordered the sequel. Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of the second book. I haven't read it in a while, but from what I remember it's more offensive, and honestly, a little more like smut. There's an angel with 7 vaginas and it has sex with one of the characters...one of the gay characters..go figure. The second book also seems to take more pot shots at God, which I didn't appreciate as a Christian. Anyway. This is a review of the first book, not the second. (just reminding myself!) I have 7 big bookcases of books at my parents' house, plus my dad is a librarian, so I do a LOT of reading. This book is ALWAYS one of the few "Chosen" books that I take to college with me to keep in my dorm. And just as a side note, I'm not gay, so this book is NOT just for gay people like some of the people whom I've talked to seem to think. BUY IT! You'll be enlightened and inspired to think.
Rating:
Summary: I love this book!
Review: I'm a college student majoring in Theater Design. I had to read this play for one of my classes my freshman year. So I sat down expecting to plod through a story that I'd never read again. Boy was I shocked! I loved it! I couldn't put it down until I'd read the last page, and then I got right online and ordered the sequel. Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of the second book. I haven't read it in a while, but from what I remember it's more offensive, and honestly, a little more like smut. There's an angel with 7 vaginas and it has sex with one of the characters...one of the gay characters..go figure. The second book also seems to take more pot shots at God, which I didn't appreciate as a Christian. Anyway. This is a review of the first book, not the second. (just reminding myself!) I have 7 big bookcases of books at my parents' house, plus my dad is a librarian, so I do a LOT of reading. This book is ALWAYS one of the few "Chosen" books that I take to college with me to keep in my dorm. And just as a side note, I'm not gay, so this book is NOT just for gay people like some of the people whom I've talked to seem to think. BUY IT! You'll be enlightened and inspired to think.
Rating: 
Summary: Angels in America opens new doors for a new generation
Review: I've never read a book that has left me with the shocking impact that 'Angels in America' has left me. At first I felt that the book was very confusing with all of the characters, but once the storyline became clear to me, I was able to get into the heart of the matter. Tony Kushner really touches on a subject that affects today's society in an unforgettable way that no other writer has been able to do. His identification with AIDS is profound, although the book takes place at a time when AIDS was still unknown and misunderstood. Today's society may be more accepting of people's different lifestyles, but there is still a division in our beliefs and opinions. Kushner has helped me to believe that just because you are different doesn't mean you are not a human being. It's what's inside of the person that matters the most. It's what the person has to give to others that makes them human beings. Kushner's characters all have a unique personality about them; they are all different. But in the end we find that every person in the book have something in common, and that is what makes them become one in the end. It's what makes them all connected in the same way. Prior and Louis are two of the best characters in the book. Through them, all of the other characters become connected somehow by the end of the book. They all meet under strange circumstances, but it is those odd circumstances that make the book so spectacular. Roy is the most profound character that I have ever come across. He has an incurable disease that is taking his life, yet he remains in denial until the end leaving me with the question of whether the disease ever destroyed him or if he destroyed the disease. I think the two chracters, Joe and Harper, stand for what every person goes through some time in their lives. Our world is full of confusion and decisions, the hardest thing to do is keep yourself straight, so to speak, but Joe and Harper become the victims of an uncompassionate society; a society that abandons them. The issues revealed in this book are issues that most people want to hide from. No one wants to talk about politics, homosexuality, AIDS, or religion, and to combine all these issues in one book was a very bold stand Kushner took. Instead of denying all these issues or brushing them off, 'Angels in America' talks about them just like two guys talking about baseball. These issues were brought to the surface where they remained evident throughout the book wanting me to read more in the end. Although I felt the book was surprisingly full of language and explicit details, details I sometimes think should have been left to my imagination, I can't help but appreciate the truth that it provided for me by being so real and surprising. We live in a sheltered world where we want to shelter our children from all that can harm them, but in the end we don't realize that it is the sheltering that does the most damage to our youth. This book has taught me to never deny or abandon the beliefs I have grown up with or the things my parents have taught me, but at the same time, I should never abandon the person I have become.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding! Highly recommend that everyone read.
Review: If I wasn't required to read "Angels in America" I probably would have never had the chance to experience one of the most heart felt books ever read. I'm not one to read and this book from the first page grabbed me and practically sucked me in. I found myself unable to put it down. I wanted to read more and more just to find out what was going to happen next. I admire how Kurshner gets the reader so in tuned to the book. He has a way of grasping the readers attention and keeping the readers attention til the very end. Although some parts of the book through me off a bit, overall I could really relate to what was being explained. I liked especially how Kurshner talks about real issues that many people in society today turn their heads on and even sometimes discriminate against. I have extremem respect for people who are not afraid to be themselves and don't care what others may think of them. Kurshner presents three different prespectives on homosexuality. One of a couple very open about their sexuality, anotherof a man who isn't really sure of it and last a man who is living in denial. All are very real situations that society is faced with today. Also, there is a large number of people living with AIDS and are trying to cope with it as best they can. I experienced loosing a close friend of the family who was homosexual with AIDS and I know how hard it is to watch someone you love so much just wither away slowly and to see such fear in that persons eyes. It really makes an impact on ones life. I can't explain in words how I felt when I finished this book. All I can say is that it made me realize that life is short and we shouldn't take it for granted. Society spends to much time critizing people instead of making friends and enjoying having the opportunity to experience and know so may unique individuals. Again I say this book was fabulous.
Rating:
Summary: A Landmark play for the 90's
Review: If one had to choose the ten best or most influnetial plays of the 1990's, Tony Kishner's Angels In America: The Milleniun Approaches and Perestroika would be on the list. The first one was comedic and tragic, with a brilliant conclusion. One would think it would be a difficult follow-up. Well, the second is actually better than the first. The characters are developed further, and the crisis continues. This play is more symbolic and expressionistic than the first, but that is the key to it's success. At once heart-breaking and funny, compassionate and humorous, this play strikes a chord, and is worthy of the praise it has received.
Rating: 
Summary: This ain't no angel, it's a turkey!
Review: If you were one of not a few people who sat through the stage production of Angels in America trying to squelch the little voice that kept crying out, "But the emperor is butt nekkid!," let it be silent no longer. This book is irrefutable evidence that it is so. Shorn of the splashy production gimmicks and bereft of actors who can rise above the banal material, this play is revealed as a sophmoric, sentimental and slipshod piece of politically correct feel-goodism. Both the dialogue and the handling of the plot are embarrassingly awkward. The play reads as an exercise in adolescent hysteria masquerading as theatre. Despite my own experiences and attitudes regarding AIDS, I have to say that this bloated and pretentious vehicle would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been about AIDS.
Rating:
Summary: kudos for Kushner
Review: Kushner's _Angels in America_ is superb!! Originally written to be preformed on stage it also reads well. It is easy for one
s imagination to visualize the characters and their trials and tribulations as the story unfolds. AIDS is disease that has touched many... not only the "gay" community but this book shows the real "human" side of the gay community that often is buried under homophobia and fear.
Rating:
Summary: kudos for Kushner
Review: Kushner's _Angels in America_ is superb!! Originally written to be preformed on stage it also reads well. It is easy for one
s imagination to visualize the characters and their trials and tribulations as the story unfolds. AIDS is disease that has touched many... not only the "gay" community but this book shows the real "human" side of the gay community that often is buried under homophobia and fear.
Rating:
Summary: I couldn' t put the book down, I loved Angels in America !!!
Review: Once you Start you can't Stop!! Angels in America written by Tony Kushner is a brilliant play. Kushner captures the lives of Homosexuals, Black drag queens, Mormans, and corrupted Republican. I have never read anything that could keep my attention as well as Kushner. I started to read this book on Friday and I couldn't put it down untill I was finished reading. I was taught many things that I didn't know about Homosexuals and the difficulties that they indoor. Presently, being a White female I was unaware of the discrimination against Homosexuals and the limitations that go along with homosexuality. I can guarantee that you will be ingulf by the characters of this play Prior, Lewis, Joe, Belize, and many more that will keep your attention span going all the way to the end. Kushner also informs the reader about AIDS, and drugs and its effect on the lives of the characters. Kushner also keeps you on your toes by switching from fantasy to reality. I suggest that you find out for yourself to see if you were as interested in the play as I was. Have FUN !!
Rating:
Summary: Angels among us?
Review: Plays are difficult things to read. It is rare to find a play that is widely read outside of classroom assignments. We have become so accustomed to the narrative form that it can be discombobulating to read stage directions, set descriptions, and stark lines of characters with little sense of the nuance of delivery, the emotion behind the words. Of course, we also have to thank Mr. William Shakespeare for scaring most people away from reading plays in play form. Great that the Bard is, many people look back on their school assignments of reading with a certain amount of angst. Play form is difficult enough, but surely Shakespeare could be translated into English! 'Angels in America, Pt. 1: Millennium Approaches' is, linguistically speaking, a much more accessible play. But it still suffers (as perhaps all plays must) from the lack of description beyond the words. In this regard, plays are very much more like poetry - they tend to latch on to single elements rather than taking the fuller form of narrative, and leave the rest to the imagination of the reader. Tony Kushner's play is imaginative. Like great playwrights of old, he takes contemporary situations and figures and embellishes them, keeping faith with the overall meanings in society and the overall characters he's using, but is careful to make it known that this is a work of fiction. We begin the play, staged (we are told) in the barest of scenery with a minimum of scene shifting and no black-outs - imagine, if you will, almost a stream of consciousness as the play progress - there is a funeral. A Jewish funeral. Not an unusual scene in New York, but the Rabbi doesn't know the woman, and so gives generic funereal orations. Scene shifts to the office of Roy Cohn (alas, an all too real figure, but this is, Kushner emphasises, a fictional account). Here we encounter the high-powered, high-strung Cohn in his glorious best (or worst) while Joe (a conservative Mormon lawyer) is being chatted up for a job, which would put him in Cohn's debt. Scene shifts - we see Joe's wife Harper planning a trip with a travel agent, Mr. Lies. And so forth - in the course of this tale, we meet several people who are in various stages of AIDS. This is the meaning of the play. We encounter out gays and closeted gays, poor gays and rich gays, and the occasional straight suffering person, too. Often we have scene shifts and double scenes with two sets of action going on simultaneously. The moral issues of life with AIDS (which, as it happens, often reflect the moral issues of life more generally) are played out in political, social and religious terms. Take, for instance, Louis, who attends the funeral (conducted by the Rabbi), who is contemplating leaving his lover Prior, who has started to show symptoms. The interplay between Louis and the Rabbi shows differing ideas not only between religions but also within religions toward difficulties. Later, Cohn launches into an extended tale to his doctor of how he couldn't possibly be a homosexual: 'This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men. But really this is wrong. Homosexuals are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of trying cannot get a pissant antidiscrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals are men who now nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout. Does this sound like me?' Ultimately, denial is deep with Cohn. Doctor: You have AIDS, Roy.
Cohn: No, Henry, no. AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer. Ultimately, issues of drug access, relationship building and deterioration, and the overall morality of life is played out among the characters. Perhaps the image of Ethel Rosenberg, who appears to Cohn in one of his weakened delusional states, says it best: History is about to crack wide open. Millennium approaches. The play concludes as an Angel makes a traumatic entry at the end (the cracking open that Rosenberg mentions, perhaps?) appearing to Prior, after we have witnessed Prior's now ex-lover Louis making a connection with our conservative Mormon lawyer Joe. There is a message. We the audience are not told what it is.
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