Theater Review: Lambda Players are up to the challenge of Kushner's 'Angels'

Surreal, hallucinatory and revelatory, Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" is one of the great modern American plays. And the Lambda Players production of it – "Part One: Millennium Approaches," anyway – is one of the best community theater productions in recent memory.

An ambitious undertaking – at 3 1/2 hours, the length alone is daunting – this production has drawn an extremely talented cast with wide theater experience ("Death of a Salesman" at the Woodland Opera House, "Urinetown" at River Stage, City Theatre's "Equus" and "Our Town," and the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival, to name a few). They coalesce as a family onstage in a way that Kushner could only hope that Americans would in the face of political cynicism, religious hypocrisy, sexual ambivalence and AIDS.

At the heart of this eight- character play are two couples, Prior Walter, whose American lineage goes back to the Mayflower and who has AIDS (brought to agonizing life by Kevin Caravalho), and his Jewish lover, Louis (Evan Johnson, who flawlessly projects his conflicted personality); and Joe Pitt, a closeted, ambitious Mormon lawyer (given equal conflict by the fine Eric Baldwin) and his wife, Harper (the beautifully tortured Maggie Hollinbeck), whose marriage to Joe is so tenuous and troubled that she retreats into Valium and hallucinations.

Eddie Jackson, a friend of Prior and Louis, has just the right snap as the former drag queen Belize.

These fictional creations are joined by such real-life characters as Roy Cohn (Jes Gonzales in a commanding role) and the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (Martha Omiyo Kight in one of several strong roles, including that of Hannah, Joe's mother). And then there's the angel of the title (Kira Taylor).

It's a potentially confusing and nonstop series of delirious fantasy made coherent by pure stagecraft. Brian Rivera directs the play with pedal to the metal (good thing, or the play would run into tomorrow, thanks to Kushner's smart but long-winded rant on reality, perception and the need to change both).

A simple set designed by Kurt Kurtis – a plain dark wall with ominous blue clouds painted on it, dark curtains hanging over exits upstage and down on each side, and a bilevel moving platform that serves as desk, park bench and bed – adapts well to the play's shifting physical locality and allows nearly instantaneous scene changes.

Daniel Haskett's lighting and the sound design by Amir Sharafeh and Rivera, particularly the beating of hearts and wings, contribute to the overall effectiveness of the production.

"Angels in America (Millennium Approaches)" opened on Broadway in 1993. It won that year's Pulitzer Prize for drama and the 1992-93 Tony Award for best play. Tackling the very big and serious questions of AIDS, politics, greed and morality, the writing is smart and funny, so witty that it often is laugh-out-loud hilarious – remarkable given the universe created onstage.

"Angels in America" was presented by Beyond the Proscenium Productions" in Sacramento just about 10 years ago. We can only hope that Lambda will do as BPP did then, and bring this cast together again for "Part Two: Perestroika."

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