Politics, Identity, and Change

• The play emphasizes the importance of human progress and adaptation, contrasting it with the desire for stability and resistance to change.
• Characters often express the urge to halt change when facing difficulties, highlighting the tension between the need for stability and the instinct to migrate and evolve.
• Migration serves as a key theme, influencing characters' personal histories and prompting them to leave familiar places. It touches Prior, Belize, Louis, Joe, Harper and Hannah.
• K encourages the audience to embrace change in politics and society, challenging the nostalgia for the past and advocating for progress.

Politics and Pressures of Identity and Community

• The play explores the personal and political connections between individuals, especially how they define identity and community.
• The angel's crash through Prior's ceiling at the end of Part 1 symbolizes the destruction of community and identity, showing the breakdown of relationships and the isolation of characters.
• Roy seeks to exclude himself from any group he perceives as weak, highlighting his struggle with belonging.
• Joe experiences a complete reshaping of his identity after acknowledging his homosexuality.
• Harper's identity and community are stripped away, forcing her to redefine herself.
• The play contrasts the inclusive nature of the queer community with the exclusionary practices of religious communities towards gay members or those with AIDS.
• Characters feel constrained by societal expectations, like Joe's struggle to suppress his homosexuality and Roy's rejection of the homosexual label.
• The change in Prior's identity after contracting AIDS leads to his abandonment by Louis.
• Friendships form between characters, suggesting that identities can transcend stereotypes and labels, promoting unity despite differences.

Stigma and Denial

• The play links stigma to identity, portraying it as a form of prejudice that discredits individuals or groups perceived as different.
• Stigma is associated with feelings of social shame and disgrace.
• Both Roy and Joe deny their homosexuality due to the stigma attached to the label, influenced by their Republican affiliations and religious beliefs.
• Roy also denies having AIDS to avoid disease stigma.
• Characters attempt to escape the realities of their painful lives through denial.
• Louis attempts to escape by abandoning Prior and cheating. Harper uses Valium. Roy admits his desires in private.
• Joe confronts denial, but Roy NEVER manages to confront his.

Justice

• The play examines the meaning of justice on personal and political levels and the means for achieving it.
• Some characters seek social justice while others try to manipulate justice for their benefit.
• The play references the Reagan era and political injustices surrounding AIDS, including the marginalization and demonization of gay men.
• Lack of government empathy and inaction reinforced societal homophobia.

Human Suffering

• Suffering is seen primarily in characters with AIDS, such as Prior.
• All characters face pain or loss in some form, including Harper's marital struggles and Joe's internal conflict over his sexuality.

Politics (Identity and Community)

• The play is overtly political, portraying Republicans as villains and Democrats (liberals).
• It addresses the divide between left and right, symbolizing political corruption and political freedom.
• Louis and Joe represent opposing ideologies, with Louis attempting to bridge the political gap.
• Roy and Louis represent opposing views about the essence of politics.
• K advocates for active citizenship, encouraging the audience to push political boundaries.

Religious and Biblical References (Identity and Community)

• The play makes multiple references to Mormonism and Judaism, highlighting both religions' distinct characteristics and their relationship to American society.
• The religions make moral demands of their communities.
• By linking America to religious texts, K creates a 'sacred', symbolic atmosphere.
• Foreshadowing events of the play through religion.

AIDS (Stigma and Denial, Human Suffering)

• AIDS symbolizes untimely and sudden death.

The Angel (Stasis vs Change and Justice)

• The intervention of the Angel in Prior's life indicates that the challenges faced by homosexuals have major consequences for all of humanity.
• The Angel symbolizes judgment and the chance to reclaim purity.

Migration (Identity and Community, Stasis vs change)

• Migration represents minorities' experiences and the struggle for recognition and inclusion in mainstream America.
• The play presents the idea that disaster is necessary to imagine Utopia.
• The play revolves around dichotomies: heaven/hell, forgiveness/retribution, spirit/flesh, pleasure/pain, beauty/decay, past/future.
• Contradictions between binaries create meaning.
• K's politics emphasize communitarianism, rationalism, and progress.
• Initial critical responses to the play were positive, except from right-wing outlets that disagreed with the portrayal of Reagan's America.
• A historicization is made of the immediate past to comment on the present and point to the future.

Representation of Class, Race, Gender and Culture in the Play

• The play breaks barriers by giving visibility to gay characters on stage and in society.
• The audience is reminded of the oppression of gay male sexuality to understand how to defeat it.
• The Utopian dream is not assimilation, rather equality of life based on recognition and value of difference.
• Radicalization of politics seen in the radicalization of theatre form.

Staging Style

• The play benefits from a presentation style that employs the cast and the stage hands.
• Magic should be amazing.

Staging

• Pared-down style with minimal scenery and rapid scene shifts.
• Actors must play the reality of the locations.
• Opening scene includes only a coffin.
• Scenes can take place at the same time in multiple locations.

Type of Stage

• Proscenium, thrust, theatre in the round are all suitable.

Set Design

• Set reflects multiple locations and settings (apartments, hospitals, restaurants, offices etc).
• Transitions between setting achieved through moveable set pieces or innovative design.
• Drama is blended with fantasy.

Lighting

• Lighting design is essential for creating moods and emphasizing key moments.
• Accentuated supernatural elements with creative lighting effects.

Sound

• Sound design enhances the emotional impact.
• Sound provides creative soundscapes with supernatural elements and dreamlike sequences.
• Silence also impacts in certain moments.

Props

• Props are used to enhance Realism.

Costumes

• Costumes capture essence of characters, socio-economic background, identity, personal journeys. Elaborated.

Acting Style

• The play entails aspects of Realism and Stanislavski as well as Brechtian elements such as multi-rolling.

Split Scene

• Working out psychologically coherent reasons helps people know why characters stop when action happens somewhere else.
• Finding concurrent complimentary vitality in the two events gives them a dynamism.