{"id":113610,"date":"2018-03-08T13:14:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-08T18:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=113610"},"modified":"2018-03-09T13:45:18","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:45:18","slug":"qa-tim-dugan-on-angels-in-america-25-years-after-broadway-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/03\/08\/qa-tim-dugan-on-angels-in-america-25-years-after-broadway-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: Tim Dugan on Angels in America<\/em>, 25 years after Broadway debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIn our department, there\u2019s great freedom of choice as a director,\u201d says Timothy Dugan, assistant professor of theater. \u201cWe\u2019re able to suggest to the department what we would really like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what he really wanted to see, Dugan told his theater colleagues last fall \u2014 just a few weeks into his first semester here \u2014 was Bates presenting one of the pinnacles of 20th-century theater: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The play is the first in playwright Tony Kushner’s duology Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes<\/em>. The plays grapple with love, religion, politics, community \u2014 and, especially, with the medical-cultural terror that was the spread of HIV\u2013AIDS in the 1980s. (The second play is AIA: Perestroika<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

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Shown during a March 7 dress rehearsal, Assistant Professor of Theater Tim Dugan is the director of the Bates production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches<\/em>. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

The travails of two couples on the rocks drive the plot, wrapped in magical realism and embellished with the savvy fictionalizing of historic figures. But in essence, as the title suggests, the topic of Millennium Approaches<\/em> is both dead simple and unfathomably complicated: the feeling that everything\u2019s about to change.<\/p>\n

The play debuted on Broadway, and received Pulitzer and Tony awards, in 1993 (in which year, the World Health Organization estimated, there were 2.5 million cases of AIDS globally). In 2018, the 25th anniversary of Millennium Approaches<\/em>\u2019 Broadway debut, it\u2019s appearing in a number of revivals \u2014 including the Bates production<\/a> that, under Dugan’s direction, opened March 8 and continues through the 12th.<\/p>\n

A series of supporting events (titled The Great Work Begins<\/em>, after a key phrase from the play) began in February and included research presentations by scholars and students.<\/p>\n

Impressed from the start by the campus\u2019 openness to robust ideas, Dugan says, \u201cI felt like this was something that would be embraced and celebrated. And it has been.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play is set in 1985. How is it still relevant?<\/h5>\n
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John Dello Russo \u201918 plays Louis Ironson and Ethan Winglass \u201919 plays Joe Pitt in Angels in America: Millennium Approaches<\/em>. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Certainly there has been progress in LGBTQIA+ rights since 1985, when AIDS wasn\u2019t even acknowledged yet as a national epidemic. But, absolutely, this play still resonates today.<\/p>\n

One of the characters is Roy Cohn, based on the powerful lawyer. The role isn\u2019t biographical to a T, but we all know that Roy Cohn was President Trump\u2019s lawyer at one point. Certainly you could [view] the playbook that Cohn used to get what he wanted as something that our president has been inspired by and uses to this day. Just a few weeks back, Trump said, \u201cWhere\u2019s my Roy Cohn?\u201d in a press conference.<\/p>\n

I think Tony Kushner is capturing something a lot of people are wondering about, how we\u2019re questioning democracy in some ways right now. Kushner is an incredible political writer, and he makes no bones about that.<\/p>\n

What is Kushner\u2019s overriding theme in Angels in America<\/em>, do you think?<\/h5>\n

I think he\u2019s asking us to embrace change. The characters in this play are faced with enormous and often unendurable circumstances. They begin the play in crisis.<\/p>\n

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Nate Stephenson \u201918 portrays Prior Walter. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

We follow Prior Walter, who has been diagnosed with AIDS and then is abandoned by his lover. Prior is the prophet that an angel has come to reckon with. And through him, Kushner gives us this idea that we can resist change \u2014 and if so, the consequences will be quite dire \u2014 or we can embrace change. Change can be extremely painful and difficult, but in Kushner\u2019s view, it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

The play also asks, \u201cWhat does it mean to be an American?\u201d Because, you know, the play is about so many things \u2014 race, spirituality, religion, sexuality. And Kushner uses the AIDS crisis as a lens to ask those questions. What has it taught us about being Americans? How have we been, or not been, there for each other in this situation?<\/p>\n

Now more than ever, that question \u2014 certainly for myself and certainly for students \u2014 has been one we\u2019ve really been digging into and grappling with.<\/p>\n

How do you bring your student actors up to speed with the mid-1980s context?<\/h5>\n

We’re very fortunate to have two student dramaturges on board, Alison Greene \u201920 and Luc Alper-Leroux \u201920, to do research, and it\u2019s quite extensive with this play. We have a Google folder that the whole cast and crew are invited to, and that\u2019s an enormous aid for all of us, because there are so many historical, religious, and philosophical references in the play.<\/p>\n

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A dramatic peak in the Angels<\/em> story. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

I have a good friend who works for Actors Theater of Louisville, which produced both parts of Angels<\/em> last October. Their resident dramaturge did an interview with Alison and Luc \u2014 we had a great phone conference \u2014 and shared some of her ideas, which illuminated the play for us in an exciting way.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s great about doing it here at Bates is that we\u2019re surrounded by de facto dramaturges. For example, politics professor Stephen Engel<\/a> [a national authority on American political development and social movements, particularly involving LGBTQ issues] came to a rehearsal of a scene that was talking about different political movements in the \u201980s, as Roy and his sidekick Martin Heller are trying to persuade another character to join them. So we were able to unpack it that way. It was wonderful.<\/p>\n

How do you drive home to students the sheer emotional and cultural weight of AIDS and HIV in the 1980s?<\/h5>\n

That\u2019s been one of the most important, and most challenging, parts. I saw the original production in New York \u2014 I was working for a theater downtown, and I used to walk through the Village, and there was something in the atmosphere. You could see it passing people on the street.<\/p>\n

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Hello, angel: Prior Walter receives a visitor, played by Sofia Elbadawi \u201918. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

To try to capture that for students, we\u2019ve spent a lot of time in dialogue about it, frankly. We\u2019ve immersed ourselves in video clips and other information, and the Great Work Begins<\/em>\u00a0series was also designed for all of us to embrace as a cast and crew.<\/p>\n

We’re just trying to get to the depth, trying to honor those people who endured that, survived that, died in that.<\/p>\n

\nTimothy Dugan, assistant professor of theater, discusses why a liberal arts college like Bates is the ideal setting for a production of \u201cAngels in America: Millennium Approaches\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n