Cuckoo Politics

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a movie that seems like you’ve seen it even if you haven’t. I finally watched it. Full disclosure—my real reason was that I wanted to have context for the new Netflix show Nurse Ratched starring Sarah Paulson. 

My initial reaction to the film is, whoa, I need to unpack this.

The movie is set during the fall of 1963, but released in 1975, and it’s striking how much happened in America during that time, including the Kennedy assassination, civil rights, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the women’s movement. We can see both the wide-ranging changes and the reaction to it in this story. 

For example, when we first meet Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy, the casual sexism that both he and the doctor interviewing him display is perfectly normal. They joke over his statutory rape conviction that landed him in prison, what McMurphy calls the “work farm.” Like Hamlet, McMurphy has been pretending to be mentally ill, but unlike the Danish prince, all McMurphy wants is an easier way to finish out his sentence at the state mental hospital. 

Perhaps in another sign of the times, the only people of color we see are orderlies working at the hospital. All the patients are white men, except for one Native American character who McMurphy nicknames “Chief,” a nod to casual racism to match his sexism. Interestingly, we later learn that Chief is only pretending to be a deaf-mute man, which forms a parallel to McMurphy’s play-acting. Both men meet drastically different fates though.

What strikes me is how much potential these men would’ve had if only their circumstances were different. McMurphy is an “outside the box” rabble-rouser who just as easily could’ve been an entrepreneur, while Chief’s stoic bravery might’ve transformed him into a significant leader. They reminded me a little of Stringer Bell and Omar Little in The Wire. I always thought, if only they had other opportunities who knows what amazing things they might’ve accomplished instead?

I think that gender politics are more in the foreground in this movie. The villain is a middle-aged woman who is controlling and limits the fun of her male patients. Nurse Ratched is a master class in passive-aggressiveness. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a sociopath, but isn’t that maybe the only way that a woman in that world could wield any power? I wonder if all her empathy and “do no harm” sensibilities have been corrupted by the patriarchy. Or is she a monster drawn to nursing because she can inflict the maximum amount of pain on the vulnerable?

Nurse Ratched seems to have met her match in McMurphy—or so it seems. I think his fatal flaw is that he doesn’t take his opponent seriously. Ratched can inflict pain and ultimately permanent damage on him. The establishment is simply too strong for a libertine like McMurphy. 

On some level, I wonder if his heart is even in this war because he passes up major opportunities to escape. Again, this might be because he doesn’t take the danger he’s in seriously, but it’s frustrating to watch him scale the hospital fence just to take the other patients on a fishing adventure. And later, he chooses not to climb out the open window when he stages a party once Ratched leaves for the night. 

Another way to read this, of course, is that McMurphy has bonded with the other patients and feels protective of them, especially the stuttering Billy. It’s heartbreaking to watch how Nurse Ratched dismantles all of Billy’s confidence after he’s discovered with the prostitute. She wields guilt with as much surgical precision as McMurphy incites chaos. 

Instead of escaping, McMurphy snaps and starts to strangle Nurse Ratched. This a brief moment of triumph for both him and the audience, but it ultimately fails. It’s an impotent gesture, and one that we discover neuters McMurphy permanently with a subsequent lobotomy. Is this a comment on the sexual revolution and the changing power dynamics in America at the time? Given this, it’s interesting that the only person to escape is a calm and determined man who stays out of the battle and waits for his opportunity to gain freedom.

Boston’s Hamilton Doesn’t Take a Break from Genius

I’ve been privileged to see Hamilton twice—once on Broadway in 2016 and once this week in Boston with the touring company. I don’t have to tell you that it’s a work of genius. Yet, I wondered if the original Broadway production would translate to the regional cities. Of course, it does. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s opus would work as a community theater production by toddlers—it’s that good.

With this in mind (and trying hard not to compare the original version too much), I sat down to watch this new touring production. The usual Alexander Hamilton had the night off, so Edred Utomi stepped into the role. His portrayal as the titular character is confident, young, and handsome. Even though he got a little lost during “Right Hand Man,” and flubbed two of the lines, the actor sang and rapped with flair.

Since Hamilton is told from the point of view of the villain, the role of Aaron Burr is critical. Played by Nicholas Christopher, this Burr isn’t the smooth operator that Leslie Odom, Jr. made famous (and won a Tony for). Instead, he’s squirrelly and skittish; it totally works. We get why Burr is both jealous and enamored by Hamilton, and a little scared too. Plus, Christopher can belt. His vocals in “Wait for It” and “The Room Where It Happens” left the theater breathless.

The other major standout performance, both in terms of the original show and the Boston production, was Bryson Bruce as first Lafayette and then Jefferson. What the role calls for, and Daveed Diggs perfected in the Broadway run (and also earned a Tony for depicting), is a certain swagger and strut that Bruce tapped into perfectly. You simply can’t take your eyes off of him. He rises up to match Hamilton in the second act as a natural foil.

With the way that Hamilton is written, Angelica (Sabrina Sloan) and King George (Peter Matthew Smith) also need to build tension and release it. This company accomplishes both. The King is hilarious—all haughtiness and entitlement thwarted—and in this production it really works to have him cast older as the real King George would’ve been. I wonder if this is closer to the original intent of the show as Brian d’Arcy James originated. Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan Groff is unparalleled in his Broadway portrayal of the temperamental king, but there’s something to seeing a middle-aged man depict the role. The loss is greater, and the madness that follows is even more poignant.

As Angelica, Sloan brings to her role the longing and disappointment that it needs, and also the ability to dazzle us with not only her verbal dexterity but also her heartbreak. Arguably, she’s Hamilton’s soulmate, but their relationship is unrequited. Instead, he marries her sister, Eliza, a role written to be all soft edges and femininity.

This is perhaps the only place where this touring production falls short. Hannah Cruz as Eliza just doesn’t seem to fit. I’m not sure if it’s her punk rock shaved on the sides and back haircut or her inability to hold it together in emotional moments while she’s singing, but her Eliza falls flat. I wonder if she’s just miscast, especially compared to the soft-hearted vulnerability that Philippa Soo brought to the role.

All in all, though, the touring production of Hamilton is in the words of the show, “Non-Stop.” It’s wonderful, and accessible to a greater audience than the nearly impossible to obtain Broadway tickets. I personally think everyone should get a chance to experience what Michelle Obama has called, “the best piece of art in any form that I have seen ever in my life.” Without question, you’ll see this touring production and hope that, “You’ll Be Back.”

 

First Reformed Delivers Toil and Crisis to a Troubled World

I’ve been fascinated with Ethan Hawke ever since I saw him play slacker dreamboat Troy Dyer in Reality Bites. Sure, he’s been in some stinkers, but mostly his career has been a series of searching roles. My favorite, of course, has always been Jesse Wallace in the “Before” trilogy, a character we’ve watched evolve from a wandering and slightly self-important young man in Before Sunrise, to a longing romantic in the luminous Before Sunset, and finally to a guilt-ridden but ultimately hopeful middle-aged man in Before Midnight.

Hawke seems to bring the best and worst of all three “Before” characters, plus something almost otherworldly, to his latest role as Ernst Toller in First Reformed. A minister at a long-forgotten Protestant church of the same name in upstate New York, Toller preaches to a mostly empty congregation and gives occasional guided tours to those curious about the church’s history as a stop on the Underground Railroad. The church, approaching its 250^th anniversary, has become a relic. At first it seems as though Toller is happy to be the quiet custodian of this sleepy church, but we soon learn that there’s loss and anger just barely contained within him.

At the beginning of the movie Toller tells us in voiceover that he’s embarking on a quest to write every day for a year in his new journal. Once the year passes, he plans to destroy the handwritten record. Why would he go to all that trouble just to eradicate his story? We see this come up again at the end of the movie as Toller slips more and more into despair and nihilism. What makes this movie so interesting is that we not only see it, but we can’t escape it.

Before he gets there, we watch him tuck into his writing armed with a pencil and a bottle of whiskey. Toller’s alcoholism is taking a horrific toll on his health, complete with excruciating scenes of painful brown urine and visceral stomach pain. It’s all self-inflicted, of course, much like the themes we soon encounter once he meets Michael (Philip Ettinger), a tortured environmental activist and his wife, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), who asks Toller to counsel her husband.

Michael, we discover, is so disturbed with the state of the planet that he doesn’t want his pregnant wife Mary to bring a child into this poisonous world. His conversation with Toller, and subsequent suicide, seems to possess the minister with a quest to continue the work, even if it results in violence. It soon eats away at Toller, much like his illness and alcoholism do.

First Reformed shows us what it looks and feels like to internalize unanswerable questions, such as how to address our moral obligation to the planet, corporate corruption, loss and grief, depression, and powerlessness. Perhaps because Toller is a minister (or maybe because these issues are too big to understand fully), the movie creates a heightened almost mystical reality.

In one scene, Toller and Mary levitate in what reminded me of Bernini’s famous sculpture, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. In another, they embrace in an extended kiss that I have to admit brought to mind the swirling camera work at the end of Never Been Kissed. The crucial difference, of course, is that First Reformed isn’t a romantic comedy. The stakes are higher; the questions never get answered.

I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be able to get some of the images from this movie out of my head. I think that’s the intent. As Toller suffers, we can’t separate ourselves from his plight. What we’re left with is an inescapable connectedness, one that forces us to reckon with what it means to struggle, to self-destruct, to hope, and to find peace.

Lovely Details Render Lady Bird Remarkable

Near the end of Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s extraordinary new film, the main character’s mother tells her, “I want you to be the best version of yourself,” to which she replies, “But what if this is the best version?” I feel like that’s a metaphor for the entire movie; it’s the best version of a coming of age story.

We meet Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), who’s christened herself “Lady Bird” because “it’s a name ‘given to me, by me’ and her harried mom, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), in a scene that begins with them tearfully listening to the final chapter of  Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and ending in an argument with a surprising, shocking, and ultimately comedic exit. It’s such an authentic mother/daughter relationship complete with passive-aggressive viciousness and a frustrated, yet mutual respect for the ferocious and complicated women they are, or in Lady Bird’s case, are becoming.

Lady Bird takes place during Christine’s senior year at a delightfully non-terrifying Catholic high school in Sacramento. The story, based loosely on director and writer Gerwig’s life, is told with such lived-in authenticity and affection. As in real-life, there are no real villains or heroes—just people who inhabit this warm world. We watch as Christine/Lady Bird tackles math class, the school play, boys, sex, prom, and friendships. All this sounds like well-tread coming of age terrain, but in Gerwig’s skilled hands it becomes something more. I think that’s because she infuses the story with such specific details.

One of the best moments in the film is a conversation between Lady Bird and the wise nun, Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), about Lady Bird’s college essay.

“It’s clear how much you love Sacramento,” the sister tells her.

“I guess I pay attention,” Lady Bird replies.

“Don’t you think they’re the same thing?” the sister asks.

I love that idea that attention and love are synonymous. What an interesting insight. I think that’s why Lady Bird works so well—because it’s laced with such lovingly rendered details. Whether it’s the fact that Lady Bird’s 2003-era flare jeans are always just a bit too short, that the star she shares with her ill-fated first boyfriend is named Bruce, that she meets her other even worse boyfriend while he reads a copy of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, that she and her wonderful Dad (Tracy Letts) plan to eat an entire bag of Doritos in the car without telling her mom in stressful times—it’s almost too much, but just enough. It’s all the result of paying attention, and creating something beautiful with those lovely details.

The Complicit Tax

I wonder if we were able to look into the souls of most Republicans all we’d see would be tax cuts. Their single-minded mania seemed to pay off this weekend when they passed their sweeping tax bill. Maybe I’m naïve in being a little bit surprised that they were able to get away with a blatant boon for the ultra-wealthy—and only for them. I had hoped that we were somehow better than this; I was wrong.

Why aren’t more people angry that the government has become the voice of millionaires and multinational corporations? It’s not just that the poor and middle class aren’t the focus, but they’re the ones penalized by these needless tax cuts. Where does this contempt for the less fortunate come from, and why do so many non-rich folks support these carpet baggers?

Do we need to see what the world looks like once we’re thrown into deficits so extreme that our basic social programs begin getting cut? I mean, that’s one of the Republican goals here, right? Starve the government so much that we’re “forced” to cut programs like Social Security and Medicare? I can’t begin to understand why no one is making a successful argument for why we need more of these programs not less. Where is our FDR of the 21^st century?

The Democrats’ response seems to be wait and see—like the Republicans will be sorry later when the world falls apart. But what if they want it to fall apart? Or what if they just don’t care?

Late last month, Dictionary.com declared “complicit” the 2017 word of the year. I can’t think of a more perfect description of what the Republicans were willing to do to get their tax cut. The party of supposed morals and family values elected a racist, misogynist, sexual predator and has continued to support him for nearly a year. They stand by while a child molester creeps closer to a senate seat. They act as if it’s no big deal that a major investigation is starting to reveal that Watergate was prologue to what corruption really looks like. All so they can put more money in their already bursting bank accounts while reaching into the pockets of the vulnerable.

Learning About the New York That Almost Was (And Thankfully Wasn’t)

I’ve been watching the Ric Burns documentary New York, and once I got to Episode 7, “The City and the World (1945-2000)” it started stressing me out. Robert Moses, who I’d never heard of, and Le Corbusier (who I already despised for his impersonal and sterile aesthetic) just plain suck. New isn’t always better. Demolishing working class neighborhoods to construct the soulless red brick projects, an anti-city monstrosity we’re still stuck with, was such a wrong-headed decision. Why were the existing communities so easily dismissed?

And while I don’t think the direct result of those two arrogant men, the destruction of the old Penn Station had me near tears. It was such a grand structure, all stone and classical grandeur, and by the early 1960s it was simply gone. Anyone who’s been to the current Penn Station knows that it’s barely suited for rats. What were they thinking?

I have to admit, I tend to idolize New York City, but in watching this historical documentary it seems like the city now is a shadow of its former self. Rather than a place of limitless possibility, it’s become a playground for the rich. Everyone else seems expendable. That, quite frankly, hurts my heart.

Then comes Jane Jacobs who in the 1960s wrote a book I’d never heard of, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and took on the atrocities of urban planning. Instead of surrendering the city to the automobile, as Moses had done, she made people the focus. What was going on in the street became important, and she shined a light on what was being destroyed by so-called “urban renewal.” She brought back empathy and community to a city that always had it, but was being overpowered by a man who seemed to value neither.

Imagine, Greenwich Village could have been run through with an expressway. Thank you, Jane Jacobs and the community organizers who prevented it, and I’m thinking set a precedent for other cities across the country. The “Lower Manhattan Expressway” was defeated. People and communities won in the end, at least in this one small case, and it gives me hope.

“Mercy” Shows The Walking Dead Is a Shell of Its Former Self

While The Walking Dead has never been a great show, I used to think it was a compelling one. Season 4, especially the Daryl and Beth focused “Still” episode, had some fascinating character studies. I loved how the show broke the characters apart and reassembled them in unexpected groups all traveling towards the same eventual destination at Terminus. Sure, there were uneven episodes that season (I mean, two Governor backstory episodes?), but the writers were trying not only to expand the narrative but also make us attached to the characters. That’s why big deaths were so painful, and earned.

Watching last night’s 100^th episode called “Mercy,” I realized that I don’t care about the characters anymore. Maybe it’s been the extended focus on Negan, who despite being played by the charismatic Jeffery Dean Morgan is continuously one-note. Have all the storylines buckled under Negan’s shadow? Did the show really lose something with last year’s slaughter of both Glenn and Abraham in Negan’s big debut? Villains have brutally killed main characters before (Hershel’s death was particularly painful). Yet, something changed with Negan. He broke our spirit with his vicious, hyper-masculine, and random terror that seemed like it was never going to end. Given where we were as a country last fall and winter (and still are), this seemed like masochism.

One of the tenants of good storytelling is that putting characters in danger endears them to the audience. Maybe that’s why we can never connect with Negan—because he’s never in any real danger. We know that no matter what situation he’s in that he’ll survive (at least until the end of this season, probably beyond). How else could he escape unscathed from being about 20 feet away from dozens of automatic weapons firing directly at him? Why put him there in the first place if there’s no risk? That’s just lazy storytelling.

Instead, the story jumps around in time to try and trick viewers into thinking it’s more complicated than it really is. We’ve seen this technique before and done much better, such as in Season 5’s tragic puzzle, “What Happened and What’s Going On” with Tyreese. The difference was back then we were invested in the outcome. We felt it intensely, but last night’s episode rendered nothing. Maybe it’s time to do the merciful thing and stop watching.

Misery and Merriment in Huntington Theatre’s Merrily We Roll Along

Earlier this summer, I saw The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, a documentary about the failed 1981 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. It’s kind of a fascinating time capsule of about a million terrible staging decisions—like casting inexperienced teenagers to carry the emotional heft of grownups and scrapping the costumes in favor of shirts with characters’ names printed on them so the audience could keep everyone straight. We often conflate the play and the putting on of the play, but in this case they were worlds apart. While I’m still a little baffled how Sondheim could follow up Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, an operatic masterpiece, with this minor musical, I guess that’s the measure of a genius to take artistic risks.

Last night I went to see the Huntington Theatre Company production of Merrily We Roll Along in Boston. Based on the acclaimed West End adaptation from director, Maria Friedman, the musical smartly casts more mature actors in the three main roles of friends Franklin, Charley, and Mary. It takes a while for the audience to place their relationship in context and to connect with them. The play opens in the middle of a cliché Hollywood party after the release of a successful movie, with Franklin (Mark Umbers) celebrating with his vapid friends and hangers on while a wisecracking and alcoholic Mary (Eden Espinosa) skulks on the outskirts. We learn that these two used to be great friends, along with the absent Charley (Damian Humbley), but we can’t feel it yet.

That’s where the structure of this musical comes into play—it takes place in reverse order. The result is a surprising poignancy as we begin to observe these characters before they were the jaded, angry, and sad people we meet at the beginning of the play. As the chorus announces the year we’re travelling back to, which is a bit distracting at first, we watch the three friends combust. This narrative structure, while discombobulating, is effective because it forces the audience to piece together what they just saw with what they’re seeing now.

At the beginning of the play, Franklin shouts angrily about how Charley betrayed him, and then later we watch as Charley unleashes frustrated ire at Franklin during a talk show appearance. We see Mary’s drunken outburst during Franklin’s party, and then we view a younger version who doesn’t drink at all until Franklin disappoints her once again. I’m not completely sure the structure succeeds, but it’s an interesting intellectual exercise; it certainly made me think. I half wished I could go back to the beginning and watch the older characters again once I saw why they were behaving that way.

In order for this musical to function the three leads need to have chemistry, and Umbers, Humbley, and Espinosa certainly do. I think I felt the most sympathy for Espinosa’s Mary who spends the entirely of the play as the victim of unrequited love. She’s in love with Franklin, and watches him marry first a good match and then a toxic one. Mary is probably the smartest out of the three, but she never manages to find an equal. Is that because her feelings for Franklin hold her back? I suspect so, but maybe the play is commenting on the tricky nature of male/female friendships. One person tends to get overly attached, and consequently crushed.

While I think Merrily is far from Sondheim’s best, it certainly stays with you. Since it’s so firmly rooted to its time, identifying with the characters can be difficult, but the fundamentals of friendship, success, failure, love, and betrayal resonate. When we reach the end of the play, and the beginning of the characters’ journey, it’s almost unbearably bittersweet. We watch Franklin, Charley, and Mary meet on a starry rooftop as they’re just beginning their artistic and personal journeys. They’re filled with so much hope and affection for each other. How tragic it is to see where they end up a couple decades later—broken, disillusioned, and middle aged.

Serious Comedy with The Big Sick

It’s easy to forget how homogenized American romantic comedies are. We assume that male leads will look like Ryan Gosling or Brad Pitt—handsome white guys. Anyone who is “other” is usually cast as the non-threatening sidekick. But what if the person who’s usually relegated to the background emerges into the foreground? We get to find out in The Big Sick, a surprising and warmhearted take on the traditional rom-com format.

Based on the real-life beginnings of couple Kumail Nanjaini and Emily V. Gordon, it begins with the typical “meet cute” when Emily, played by the adorable yet zany Zoe Kazan, accidentally heckles Kumail during his comedy set. The two fall into an easy banter at the bar afterwards as Emily playfully questions Kumail’s pickup techniques. One amusing Uber ride later, they’re hooking up and claiming they’ll never see each other again. We in the audience know better. Couples must meet, become smitten, face an obstacle or betrayal, break up, and get back together.

The Big Sick really starts to get interesting when Emily falls seriously ill and spends most of the movie in a medically induced coma. It doesn’t sound like rom-com material, but it works. Once we meet her parents, played with effortless perfection by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter, we realize that Kumail is destined to fall in love (and so are we). Romano and Hunter’s characters are a mini study in the fascinating interplay between opposites. He’s warm and inviting; she’s brusque and impatient. Of course, they’re fiercely protective of their daughter, and it takes Kumail a long while to win them over. How fun it is watching him accomplish it.

The reason why Kumail and Emily break up before she gets sick is a conflict with his parents who want him to marry a Pakistani woman. We watch amusedly while his mother repeatedly makes “appointments” occur with potential spouses who happen to drop by during family dinners. As a result, Kumail and Emily’s relationship seems impossible (and almost is) until extreme events shake things up. Lots of rom-com hurdles seem frivolous, but here we have a very real cultural impediment, one that feels true because it is.

The Big Sick deals in these cultural conflicts with thoughtfulness and sensitivity. Kumail and his family are three-dimensional Muslim characters, something we don’t often get to see in Hollywood movies. In today’s world filled with xenophobic “Muslim bans” and fear mongering, it’s more important than ever to portray these folks as what they are—humans like everyone else. The romance almost seems like a happy accident, just like in real life.

Angels in America at the National Theatre Is a Minimalist Masterpiece

My first experience with Angels in America, Tony Kushner’s masterpiece about AIDS in 1980s New York City, was the 2003 HBO miniseries. I’d never seen anything like it. Last night, I went to a movie theater screening of the newest production at the National Theatre in London. Having come from a version made for TV, I was fascinated by how it was staged. The production is highly minimalist, with three rotating platforms basked in darkness and neon light. This starkness encourages viewers to pay close attention to the actors and to the words. Considering that Kushner’s play is one of the most beautifully written pieces of theater I’ve ever encountered, I think this was a masterful choice.

In the audience, I heard some grumblings about how the main actor, Andrew Garfield (of Spiderman fame), might not live up to the Prior Walter that Kushner created, but he delivered. Garfield’s portrayal is both camp and strength. One of the tragedies of Angels in America is that men like Prior (smart, sassy, and swishy) are afflicted and destroyed in the prime of their lives. It’s difficult to think about what we lost with that generation of gay men who never got the chance to live to old age.

Another standout in the cast was Russell Tovey as the closeted Joe, a married Mormon. He exudes that expected “aww, shucks” demeanor, but there’s something raging underneath the surface. I didn’t quite get that with Patrick Wilson’s gentler portrayal in the mini-series. Joe is trying so hard to do what he believes is the right thing that he’s suppressing so much anger and resentment, which comes out in bursts during fights with his wife, Harper, played by Denise Gough. I felt so much sympathy for her, a lost and addicted woman who knows the truth, but needs to repress it. I think she probably feels as much rage as Joe does at how unfairly their culture and religion limits them.

Of course, the character of Roy Cohn needs to be a showstopper, and Nathan Lane is, without sounding too dramatic, a revelation. He pulls off the bravado while delivering humor and maybe even a little sympathy. I think that’s because Lane brings his innate humanity and compassion to the role. He is so well cast.

One odd disappointment was James McArdle as Louis. It must be difficult to play a character so caught up in intellectualizing and endlessly articulating the current political climate while also abandoning his dying partner, but McArdle just doesn’t quite click. There were times when it seemed like he was on the verge of forgetting his lines, which took me completely out of the moment. Louis is a role with so many words, but it’s the actor’s job to make it look easy rather than arduous. I hope if this play goes to Broadway that they reconsider this casting.

On the whole, though, Angels in America is fascinating and enriching. Even though it was written and first performed more than 20 years ago, it still feels current and fresh. Is that because our current president is a descendant of Roy Cohn’s utter contempt for truth and ethics? Or is it because this wonder of a play transcends generations and current fads? I suspect it’s a little bit of both (and a little more of the latter). I guess that’s what the best art does—makes us think about not only the time it was created but our own era. Angels in America is that special kind of work that sings out, and I’m sure will continue to make us “look up” forever.