Actor Edwin Perez, as Prior, in Valencia College’s “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches” production last year. (Photo from kabelphoto.com)
Nearly one year to the day after the hit play “Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches” came to Valencia College, director Jeremy Seghers is preparing to put part two on stage.
The first part of the award-winning play premiered at Valencia College’s East Campus theater Feb. 18, 2022, with “Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika” set to premiere with the same cast Feb. 17.
As a whole, “Angels in America” was first released in 1991 and acted as a symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America during the 1980s. The play won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and John M. Clum, playwright and professor of theater studies, said it was a “turning point in the history of gay drama, the history of American drama and of American literacy culture.”
Part One begins with Louis Ironson leaving his partner, Prior Walter, after he is unable to cope with the fact that Prior has been diagnosed with AIDS. Audiences then meet Joe and Harper Pitt; Joe is a closeted gay man secretly having an affair with Louis and is also working under the infamous lawyer Roy Cohn. After Joe confesses his homosexuality, his wife Harper refuses to face her failing marriage and turns to Valium to escape in hallucinatory fantasies. Meanwhile, Prior is visited by a pair of ghosts who claim he is a divine prophet, and at the very end of Part One, an angel crashes through his bedroom ceiling and tells him that “The Great Work” has begun.
While the three-hour play sounds hefty, Seghers says audiences don’t have to know the ins and outs of Part One to understand Part Two.
“They’re all in search of something, and some of them don’t even know what it is yet,” Seghers says. “Part Two is like the revelation for all the characters after Part One. It’s about finding things out and searching for things that have been bothering the characters for a long time and finally getting a resolution.”
Part One has very distinct storylines while Part Two jumbles them all up as characters start to interact with others and conversate with them in dreams.
Seghers points out that the play as a whole is titled “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” meaning this isn’t a realistic play. Spirits and ghosts make frequent appearances, and Ethel Rosenberg, who was sentenced to death in real life, comes back to haunt Cohn as he is dying of AIDS.
“This kind of creates a world outside of our own, it’s a version of Heaven that looks like San Francisco,” Seghers says.
With almost a full year since the last play, there have been some challenges and concerns when directing Part Two. Seghers’ main concern was the success of the Part One because that would determine the production status of Part Two. Spoiler Alert: it was successful and got a positive review from the Orlando Sentinel.
“There’s the thought of like ‘Was I just lucky the first time?’” Seghers said. “Like can I actually do this? Can I recreate this again? There’s all this imposter syndrome stuff.”
Actor Chris Moux, who plays Louis, says the hardest challenge for him was connecting to the character and his cast mates again.
“Diving back into that vulnerability and getting that ability to sacrifice all of yourself has been the hardest part,” Moux says. “Everyone in the cast had to give up a lot of themselves physically and emotionally in really intense ways.”
Through all the doubts and bumps in the road, Seghers is glad to be working on this story again with the same cast he grew close to.
“I said if I got to do it again, it’s got to have the same cast. They are all absolutely perfect for the roles that they play, I got lucky,” Seghers says. “I was very fortunate that the right people came out [to audition] at the right time.”
Moux, who is the youngest in the cast, says the year gap allowed him to mature. Moux refers to the play as a “mature beast” and while he has performed in other shows, he says the additional acting experience hasn’t prepared him in the same way his life experiences have.
Seghers adds the character Louis is typically a hard role to play considering that playwright, Tony Kushner, confides himself in Louis. He often gets stuck in his own head and then it suddenly all comes out like word vomit.
“I would describe [Louis] as a clinical overthinker, if there’s someone you know that overthinks, Louis does it more and truthfully I do the same thing,” Moux says. “If I was in that same situation that Louis is in, having a lover who gets AIDS and the fear during this terrible sickness, in a lot of ways I relate to that.”
Since the early days of the AIDS epidemic, there have been advancements made in finding treatments but it is still a huge issue in today’s world.
HIV research was halted during the peak of COVID-19, as medical researchers began to focus their attention and money on creating a vaccine for the coronavirus. HIV data collected by the CDC suggest there was a large decline in testing and in 2020 there were 670,000 fewer HIV screenings than in 2019.
“I started looking back at the generation before me and realized I didn’t have any mentors,” Seghers says. “A whole generation of gay men were wiped out, and to me it was really important to pass that along to another generation and look at the legacy of where we came from.”
Seghers adds that this is the reason he tried to cast as many queer actors as he could.
“It’s like a right of passage to tell the story now, so that we don’t forget the generation that is no longer with us,” he says.
“Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika” plays at the Valencia College East Campus Black Box Theater Feb 17-25. Tickets cost $12 for general admission, and $10 for students, faculty, alumni and seniors. Tickets will be available at valenciacollege.edu/arts.
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