Part Two of the two-part Angels in America, Tony Kushner's epic drama set during the Reagan years in America - now recognised as one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century.
Perestroika picks up the stories of Prior and Cohn from Part One: Millennium Approaches. Prior, overwhelmed by the responsibilties of 'prophet' placed on him by the angels, wishes that they would leave him alone. Cohn, now dying from the virus, continues to manipulate the system from his hospital bed. But who is left to look after them now? And does anyone still care?
With a climax as bittersweet as it is beautiful, we are left wondering who the real angels are in a disparate world.
Perestroika was premiered in November 1992 in a production by the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles, directed by Oskar Eustis and Tony Taccone. In November 1993 it received its London debut in a National Theatre production on the Cottesloe stage, in repertory with a revival of Millennium Approaches, again directed by Declan Donnellan.
Perestroika won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Play.
Tony Kushner is an American playwright and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 for his play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Tony Kushner's other plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Hydriotaphia, or The Death of Dr. Brown; The Illusion, adapted from the play by Pierre Corneille; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; Caroline, or Change, a musical with composer Jeanine Tesori; The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures; and The Visit, adapted from the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt. His translations include S. Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk; Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children; and the libretto for Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister's Brundibar, a children's opera for which he wrote a curtain-raiser, But the Giraffe! He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols's film of Angels in America and for Steven Spielberg's Munich and Lincoln. His books include The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to the Present; Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; and Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. Among many honours, Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.
Title: Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika (NHB Modern Plays)
Author: Tony Kushner
ISBN: 9781854592552
Binding:
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Publication Date: 1994-02-17
Number of Pages: 120
Weight: 0.1407 kg
'One of the greatest plays of the 20th century'
* New York Observer *
'The most ambitious American play of our time'
* Newsweek *
'A vast, miraculous play, a true millennial work of art'
* New York Times *
'A victory for the theatre, for the transforming power of the imagination to turn devastation into beauty'
* New Yorker *
'A vision of America at large, pulsating with energy and appetites in the shadow of history and the sense of oncoming disaster'
* Independent on Sunday *
