What a thoroughly excellent production of Angels this NT Live broadcast showed us. I wish I had seen it in person. Because last week I ventured to New York City and saw the current NT production there, both parts, all seven-and-a-half hours, in one day. And it blew me away. Many have said the Neil Simon Theater they are in on Broadway is larger and therefore more suited to the larger visual aspects of the production. Can't compare that since I didn't see it live in London, but I can tell you that the staging works very well in their New York theater. Although the sets are still minimal, they carry meaning of their own and work to enhance the production beyond the words and music. (Yes, there's music, and The Music actually got a Tony nomination up against the full-fledged musicals in the category.) I was blown away time and again by the imaginative use of the sets and visual effects which never seemed intrusive and always served their purpose.
Almost to a person, the actors were terrific. I had some problem with blandness and sameness in Denise Gough's playing of Harper, and the new Joe is played by American actor Lee Pace, a fine actor but I just couldn't decide if he had been miscast or if he just hadn't had time to find his character's nuances yet. And unfortunately I saw it in NY on a Wednesday when Amanda Lawrence was out; program note says Beth Malone is filling in for Ms. Lawrence's roles on Wednesdays.
But I personally found all of the other actors gave performances for the ages: Mr. Garfield was simply riveting from his first graceful drag appearance (more on that later) to his final man-up speech to the audience seven hours later. He had me hanging on every word he uttered and every move he made. And I was skeptical, believe me. But after about half an hour Mr. Garfield had won me over and I never looked back. And Mr. Garfield got the single most perfect in unison and loudest laugh I have ever heard in a large theater. I soared to heaven and back on that one. Nathan Lane I was also worried about going in, having only known him from his great comedy performances. But he was as chilling a Roy Cohn as you could ever want. And was, believe it or not, also very funny. (As was Mr. Garfield in the midst of all his suffering and delusions.) James McCardle and Susan Brown and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett were superb in the main and subordinate characters that they played. None of their characters was given short shrift. All stood in high relief.
But I notice in the other three reviews here there are a couple of effeminophobes who had major problems with Mr. Garfield's interpretation of Prior Walter. As did some reviewers. I did not. There are many ways Prior Walter can be played, and Mr. Garfield chose to commit to an interpretation that can find support all over the place in the text and I found him exhilarating to follow along his journey. Prior was a drag queen, after all, as were Louis and Belize. And as no two drag queens comport themselves the same "offstage", there are many ways these three characters can be played. So you can hardly fault any moments of drag-queen softness or drag-queen movement or drag-queen bitchiness from any of these three.
And I would point you to some advice Tony Kushner (the playwright) gave to Jason Isaacs (not even playing Prior, but rather Isaacs was tackling Louis in the original production) way back during rehearsals for the first production of Angels in 1993. And I quote from a 2017 article: "Isaacs recalls the 'invaluable' lessons that Kushner taught him about playing the character of Louis when he shadowed him for a few days in New York. One was to ignore anyone in rehearsals that found being effeminate offensive or unattractive, all of which he says happened. 'Louis and Prior were in your face screaming queens and it was everybody else's problem to deal with it,' he says. Another was that the character of Louis wasn't Kushner himself. 'He was bloody close, though.' And importantly, 'that nobody has the answers in life.'
But I will say that in the NY production Mr. Garfield seems to have toned the drag down a bit from the NT Live performance in many serious moments, but he still screams like a little girl when the angel is breaking in to see him, but it's perfectly in his character and perfectly hilarious. By the end I was in awe of both Garfield's and Nathan Lane's deep dives into the extremes of their characters whether those extremes flatter or repulse. It all worked for me.
Fly to NYC and see this one before July 15. You won't be disappointed. Eleven Tony nominations, most ever for a nonmusical play. (And as I say, they even have a chance to win Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theater.)
