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Angels in America - Love and Justice

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Angels in America - Love and Justice
Angels in America
Love and Justice

Context
In 1992, American playwright Tony Kushner first commissioned and performed the award-winning, two-part play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. Kushner developed the play to work synonymously with whom actors play two or more roles. Following the mass success of the theatre, Kushner was approached by Mike Nichols to adapt Angels in America to an HBO miniseries, where each "chapter" was allocated into one-hour segments for television.

The story of Angels in America focuses on the troubled and seemingly overt parallel lives of two couples, one gay and the other straight during the mid 1980 's in New York City at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The eventual fate of both couples become intertwined and revered as the faceted meanings of homosexuality, religion, politics and AIDS collide to find a common ground. Throughout the story, the characters develop the theme for love and justice, and learn what it means to forgive and care for each other when they are needed most from their loved ones. This in-depth depiction of betrayal and asking for one 's forgiveness, known limitations and finding room for personal growth and change is the backbone of Angels in America.

Comparing and Contrasting Figures
The characters from Angels in America are contrasted from vast differences among nationality, race, religion and sexual preference. These differences show the sense of community, or lack-thereof, portraying the national image of humanity to change. Out of all the characters in the play, Belize, being the most ethical and self-balanced, has always come to the calling of the other characters throughout the story. Towards the end of the play, Belize calls upon Louis to recite the prayer of the dead (a Jewish recital in Hebrew), where he states at Roy Cohn 's deathbed "It isn 't easy, it doesn 't count if it 's easy, it 's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet.



Cited: --none-- Since the only source was the movie/play itself.

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