Angels in America (17 page)

     
(Limping back to his bed. Scared, broken, he calls out)
Louis!

     
(Summoning defiance)
No! My name is Prior Walter, I am . . . the scion of an ancient line, I am . . . abandoned I—NO. My name is . . . is . . .
Prior
and I live . . .
here and now
, and—

(The lights in the room intensify slightly as, to Prior's horror, an inhuman voice comes out of his mouth:)

PRIOR
: —
in the dark, in the dark, the Recording Angel opens its hundred eyes and snaps the spine of the Book of Life and
—

(Prior clamps his hand over his mouth; the lights return to normal.)

PRIOR
: Hush! Hush! I'm talking nonsense, I—

     
(Trying to calm himself)
No more mad scene, hush, hush . . .

(Louis is on a bench in Central Park. Joe approaches, stands at a distance. They stare at each other. Louis stands.)

LOUIS
: Do you know the story of Lazarus?

JOE
: Lazarus?

LOUIS
: Lazarus. I can't remember what happens, exactly.

JOE
: I don't . . . Well, he was dead, Lazarus, and Jesus breathed life into him. He brought him back from death.

LOUIS
: Come here often?

JOE
: No. Yes. Yes.

LOUIS
: Back from the dead. You believe that really happened?

JOE
: I don't know anymore what I believe.

LOUIS
: This is quite a coincidence. Us meeting.

JOE
: I followed you.

     
From work. I . . . followed you here.

(Little pause.)

LOUIS
: You followed me.

     
You probably saw me that day in the washroom and thought: there's a sweet guy, sensitive, cries for friends in trouble.

JOE
: Yes.

LOUIS
: You thought maybe I'll cry for you.

JOE
: Yes.

LOUIS
: Well I fooled you. Crocodile tears.
(He touches his heart, shrugs, then harshly)
Nothing.

(Joe reaches tentatively to touch Louis's face. Louis pulls back.)

LOUIS
: What are you doing? Don't do that.

(Joe withdraws his hand and takes several steps back, ready to run.)

JOE
: Sorry. I'm sorry.

LOUIS
: I'm . . . just not—
(Warning him away)
I think, if you touch me, your hand might fall off or something. Worse things have happened to people who have touched me.

JOE
: Please.

(Joe walks up to Louis.)

JOE
: Oh, boy . . .

     
Can I . . .

     
I . . . want . . . to touch you. Can I please just touch you . . . um, here?

(He puts his hand on one side of Louis's face. He holds it there.)

JOE
: I'm going to Hell for doing this.

LOUIS
: Big deal. You think it could be any worse than New York City?

(Louis takes Joe's hand away from his face and holds it, then:)

LOUIS
: Come on.

JOE
: Where?

LOUIS
: Home. With me.

JOE
: This makes no sense. I mean I don't know you.

LOUIS
: Likewise.

JOE
: And what you do know about me you don't like.

LOUIS
: The Republican stuff?

JOE
: Yeah, well for starters.

LOUIS
(Meaning it)
: I don't not like that. I
hate
that.

JOE
: So why on earth should we—

(Louis kisses Joe.)

LOUIS
: Strange bedfellows. I don't know. I never made it with one of the damned before.

     
I would really rather not have to spend tonight alone.

JOE
: I'm a pretty terrible person, Louis.

LOUIS
: Lou.

(Joe steps back from Louis.)

JOE
: No, I really really am. I don't think I deserve being loved.

LOUIS
(A nod)
: There? See? We already have a lot in common.

(Louis begins to walk away. He turns, looks back at Joe. Joe follows. They exit
.

     
Prior listens. At first he hears nothing, then all at once, the sound of beating wings again, now frighteningly near. Prior stares up at the ceiling, terrified.)

PRIOR
: That sound, that sound, it . . .
What is that
, like birds or something, like a really
big
bird, I'm frightened, I . . . No! No fear, find the anger, find the . . . anger!
(Standing on the bed, fierce, up at the ceiling)
My blood is clean, my brain is fine, I can handle pressure, I am a gay man and I am used to pressure, to trouble, I am tough and strong and . . . Oh. Oh my goodness. I . . .
(He is washed over by an intense sexual feeling)
Ooohhhh . . . I'm hot, I'm . . . so . . .
(He sinks to his knees)
Aw Jeez what is going on here I . . . must have a fever, I—

(The bedside lamp flickers wildly! Prior screams. Then the bed begins to lurch violently back and forth. The room is filled with a deep bass creaking and groaning, like the timbers of a ship under immense stress, coming from the ceiling. The bed stops moving as the creaking and groaning sounds intensify; the bedside lamp glows brighter and brighter as, from the ceiling, there's a fine rain of plaster dust.)

PRIOR
: OH! PLEASE, OH PLEASE! Something's coming in here, I'm scared, I don't like this at all, something's approaching and I—

(There is a great blaze of triumphal music, heralding.)

PRIOR
: OH!

(Four thunderous chords sound, and with each chord the bedroom is saturated with colored light: first, extraordinary, harsh, cold, pale blue; then, rich, brilliant, warm gold; then, hot, bilious green; and finally, spectacular royal purple. Then there's silence for several beats. Prior stares wildly around the purple-colored room.)

PRIOR
(An awestruck whisper)
: God almighty.

     
Very
Steven Spielberg.

(A sound, like a plummeting meteor, tears down from very, very far above the earth, hurtling at an incredible velocity toward the bedroom. The light seems to be sucked out of the room as the projectile approaches. Right before the light is completely extinguished, there's a terrifying CRASH as something immense strikes earth. The bedroom shudders and pieces of the ceiling's plaster, lathe and wiring rain down on and around Prior's bed; as the room is plunged into absolute darkness, we hear the whole ceiling give way
.

     
A beat, and then, in a shower of unearthly white light, spreading great opalescent gray-silver wings, the Angel descends through the ceiling into the room and floats above the bed.)

ANGEL
: Greetings, Prophet;

     
The Great Work begins:

     
The Messenger has arrived.

(Blackout.)

END OF PART ONE

Part Two:

PERESTROIKA

First draft completed at the Russian River

April 11, 1991

T
HE
C
HARACTERS

I
N
P
ERESTROIKA

ROY M. COHN
,
*
a successful New York lawyer and unofficial power broker.

JOSEPH PORTER PITT
, chief clerk for Justice Theodore Wilson of the Federal Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

HARPER AMATY PITT
, Joe's wife, an agoraphobic with a mild Valium addiction.

LOUIS IRONSON
, a word processor working for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

PRIOR WALTER
, Louis's boyfriend. Occasionally works as a club designer or caterer, otherwise lives very modestly but with great style off a small trust fund.

HANNAH PORTER PITT
, Joe's mother, formerly of Salt Lake City, now in Brooklyn, staying in Harper and Joe's apartment.

BELIZE
, a registered nurse and former drag queen whose name was originally Norman Arriaga; Belize is a drag name that stuck.

THE ANGEL
, four divine emanations, Fluor, Phosphor, Lumen and Candle; manifest in One: the Continental Principality of America. She has magnificent steel-gray wings.

Other Characters in
Perestroika

ALEKSII ANTEDILLUVIANOVICH PRELAPSARIANOV
(pronounced AntedilooviAHNuhvich PrelapsARianohv)
, the World's Oldest Bolshevik, is played by the actor playing Hannah. He should speak with a Russian accent, strong but comprehensible.

MR. LIES
, Harper's imaginary friend, a travel agent, played by the actor playing Belize. In style of dress and speech he suggests a jazz musician; he always wears a large lapel badge emblazoned “IOTA” (International Order of Travel Agents).

HENRY
, Roy's doctor, played by the actor playing Hannah.

ETHEL ROSENBERG
, played by the actor playing Hannah.

The mannequins in the Diorama Room in the Mormon Visitors' Center in Act Three:

        
THE FATHER
, played by the actor playing Joe.

        
THE RECORDED VOICE OF CALEB
, his son, done by the actor playing Belize.

        
THE RECORDED VOICE OF ORRIN
, his other son, done by the actor playing the Angel.

        
THE MOTHER
, played by the actor playing the Angel.

EMILY
, a nurse, played by the actor playing the Angel.

The Continental Principalities, inconceivably powerful Apparatchik/Bureaucrat Aggregate Angelic Entities of whom the Angel of America is a peer:

        
THE ANGEL EUROPA
, played by the actor playing Joe.

        
THE ANGEL AFRICANII
, played by the actor playing Harper.

        
THE ANGEL OCEANIA
, played by the actor playing Belize.

        
THE ANGEL ASIATICA
, played by the actor playing Hannah.

        
THE ANGEL AUSTRALIA
, played by the actor playing Louis.

        
THE ANGEL ANTARCTICA
, played by the actor playing Roy.

The voice at the top of Act One,
Scene 1
, announcing Prelapsarianov; the recorded greeting in the Mormon Visitors' Center in Act Three,
Scene 3
; the voice introducing the Council of Principalities in Act Five,
Scene 5
; and the voice of the BBC reporter in the same scene should be the voice of the actor playing the Angel.

*
See the footnote in The Characters list of
Millennium Approaches
.

Perestroika
is dedicated to Kimberly T. Flynn

      
Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole.

—R
ALPH
W
ALDO
E
MERSON
, “On Art”

ACT ONE:

Spooj

December 1985

Scene 1

In the darkness a Voice announces:

A VOICE
: In the Hall of Deputies, the Kremlin. December 1985. Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the World's Oldest Living Bolshevik.

(Lights up on Prelapsarianov at a podium before a great red flag. He is unimaginably old and totally blind.)

ALEKSII ANTEDILLUVIANOVICH PRELAPSARIANOV
: The Great Question before us is: Are we doomed? The Great Question before us is: Will the Past release us? The Great Question before us is: Can we Change? In Time? And we all desire that Change will come.