Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is that rare entity: a work for the stage that is profoundly moving yet very funny, highly theatrical, yet steeped in traditional literary values, and most of all, deeply American in its attitudes and political concerns. Perestroika continues the story of the characters introduced in Part I. Prior is a man living with AIDS whose lover Louis has left him and become involved with Joe, an ex-Mormon and political conservative whose wife, Harper, is slowly having a nervous breakdown. These stories are contrasted with that of Roy Cohn, a fictional recreation of the infamous American conservative ideologue who died of AIDS in 1986.

Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at the Plaza. A suburban couple take the suite while their house is being painted and it turns out to be the one in which they honeymooned 23 (or was it 24?) years before. This wry tale of marriage in tatters is followed by the exploits of a Hollywood producer who, after three marriages, is looking for fresh fields. The last couple is a mother and father fighting about the best way to get their daughter out of the bathroom and down to the ballroom where guests await her. As a part of our “one-act” series, each of the three acts will be directed by a different director.

A playground altercation between eleven-year-old boys brings together two sets of Brooklyn parents for a meeting to resolve the matter. At first, diplomatic niceties are observed, but as the meeting progresses, and the rum flows, tensions emerge and the gloves come off, leaving the couples with more than just their liberal principles in tatters.

This scalding comedy took Broadway and London by storm and won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize. Here is Mamet at his very best, writing about small-time, cutthroat real estate salesmen trying to grind out a living by pushing plots of land on reluctant buyers in a never-ending scramble for their share of the American dream.