Angels in America: The Facebook Edition

By Adina Reza & Reingard Hagemann

Adaptation/Analysis:

Our adaptation of the play by Tony Kushner is set in Dallas, Texas in 2013. We chose Texas, because in its penal code “homosexual conduct” is even nowadays still considered to be a criminal act. Although, the law is not enforced anymore, the idea that it is still in the penal code shows the conservative and anti-homosexual atmosphere in some parts of the US, and especially in Texas. Same sex- marriage is also still banned in Texas. Considering this, the themes in “Angels in America” still seem very applicable, even 20 years later, although in Germany the situation for homosexuals formally seems to be much better. Therefore, we chose to set the play in Texas, to highlight the problems homosexuals can still have nowadays, although humanity and politics seem to have become more tolerant.

The acceptance by the society seems to vary a lot between big cities and the countryside. On the countryside it seems to be much more of a taboo. As well as in some very patriarchal sports or other domains, where it is still considered to be “unmanly” and which are only slowly opening up to it. In that sense, the core issues of the play are still of value, also for a German audience.

Nevertheless, we want to update it a bit: by introducing some new communication tools, which might also underline and show some of the general issues of the play, but the modern spirit, too.

For once, Harper does not listen to the radio, but she is spending all her time on facebook or other social platforms, where she can find videos and tutorials (instead of the radio shows she listens to) and she constantly changes her status information or posts something. She is never leaving home, but lives in this parallel world, where she is friends with people she doesn’t really know. She shows the world an image of how she wants to be perceived and how she wants herself to be. We thought of having a screen at the back of the stage (the background) where there will be new status posts of every character, not only Harper`s. Especially in the scenes of Joe and Louis or Joe and Roy, posts of Harper in the background might add a different level to their conversation and bring forth her loneliness.

With the facebook-screen it could be possible to show the whole Prior-Harper-dream-scene, all of her thoughts and fears, all the seesaw about Joe being gay in status updates and commentaries from Harper, and Prior as well, while on stage the audience would see the first conversation between Joe and Louis.

Nowadays, people do not necessarily need Valium to flee from their real live, pretending to be someone or something else. Especially the character of Harper makes it easy to highlight and exaggerate nowadays’ importance of social networks. In our adaptation, Harper would rather believe in everything facebook “tells” her, than in real words of real persons. The inclusion of facebook shall be a hint to the importance and power - good and bad - not only of social networks but of media in general.

Therefore, the character of Roy would probably make use of this tool a lot, too, for building up and keeping his network. But as he will only use it to convince and persuade clients with willful misrepresentation he will still be alone in the end.

We also thought of introducing chatting in scene 9, Act II, in which both couples (Joe & Harper, Louis & Prior) have a parallel fight. We would divide the stage with a wall into two rooms, one for each couple. In this scene parts of the dialogues will not be spoken by the actors, but the couples will be concentrating on their smartphones and read the messages from their partner. For the audience they will be projected on the screen in the background. The actors will show the same emotions and also speak out loud parts of the text (when they get very emotional) but they will seem somehow absorbed in themselves. Especially to show how much Harper lives in her own little world, she would much more communicate with her smartphone than Joe, for example. On purpose we want this weird conversation to be ridiculously exaggerated to show how media/social networks can destroy conversations, or even relationships, when one of both only pays attention to his or her mobile instead of really talking to each other.

However, the actors should also at some point step out of this smartphone-conversation and react directly. But whenever the tension in the fight gets unbearable they might retreat in the smartphone-conversation again.

All in all, “Angels in America” does not really have to be set into modernity because its topics still remained nearly the same. Although there are some places in the world in which homosexuals have better rights than in others, people still fight against them, their rights and their acceptance in society, as we could have seen in France, lately. Furthermore, it remained difficult to come out of the closet, as people still do not grow up in a society, which absolutely ensures to be accepted if you are homosexual. Society rather complains about difficulties updating their facebook status than equating its fellow men.