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Tal Eskinazi

Professor Batty

English 102

24 October 2019

The Power of Abstractions

At the core of almost every human action is an underlying belief, and a belief is but an

abstract idea predicated on evidence. From religion and politics, to the arts and sciences, the

power of beliefs and abstractions have permeated almost every aspect of human culture, as well

as our collective and individual identities. In the critically acclaimed play, Angels in America,

author Tony Kushner weaves together the multiple fates of an ensemble cast of characters, living

in New York City amidst the A.I.D.S crisis of the mid-1980s. Kushner invites audiences to peer

inside of the LGBT community during the Reagan administration, examining the trials and

tribulations faced by those present then and now, within the queer community. Although many

have praised, Angels in America, as being a prime example of art which successfully subverts

public perception on LGBT issues, the truth is that in doing so, Mr. Kushner, has nonetheless

contributed to reinforcing and upholding some of our oldest cultural norms, by failing to present

any new or interesting ideas that challenge our current beliefs, ideals, and abstractions.

One of the major stereotypes and prejudices, Mr. Kushner, tries to break down

throughout the play is whether being gay is a choice or a given. The author presents the audience

with two characters who are seemingly at constant odds with their own identity, although when

under closer scrutiny it would seem as though these characters are completely in line with what

they believe about themselves. The obvious example from the play would be Joe— a recent Utah

transplant living in New York City, working as a city clerk— who is only recently coming to
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terms with his own sexuality. In act II, Joe tells his wife, Harper, that he’s gay and has known

this fact since before they had been together, to which Harper responds, “…the whole time you

were spinning a lie. I just don’t understand that” (Kushner, 47). The author tries to implicate Joe

as a liar and fraud, but under closer scrutiny this may not be the truth. In an earlier fight Joe tells

Harper, “I don’t know, I thought maybe that with enough effort, and will I could change

myself . . . but I can’t.” (Kushner, 46) Before Joe was able to admit to himself that he was a

homosexual, he honestly believed that he could change himself and, in his own words, “…kill

it.” Kushner supposes that Joe was able to make a choice, while simultaneously asserting that

Joe’s homosexuality is a given. This only feeds into the narrative that people are only and always

just one or the other and fails to leave room for the multitudes of others whose sexuality is fluid,

whether spoken of or not. The failure comes in not separating our binary ideals from the physical

reality that we inhabit. The world is made from black and white but comes out in greyscale.

A character in the story facing a similar identity crisis is Roy Cohn. Early in the play,

Roy is portrayed as a big-shot lawyer but by the end of the first act is embroiled in a bitter battle

of words with his doctor over his A.I.D.S diagnoses. Roy unable to accept what his doctor is

telling him, says:

Your problem, Henry, is that you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they

mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are

names that tell you who someone sleeps with… But really this is wrong. Homosexuals

are not men who sleep with other men. Homosexuals are men who in fifteen years of

trying cannot pass a pissant antidiscrimination bill through City Council. Homosexuals

are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. [Men] Who have zero clout. Does

this sound like me, Henry? (Kushner, 31)

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The stigma of being gay is nowhere in Roy’s worldview. He views himself outside of the gay

community although he is an active member. Mr. Kushner seems to reject the idea that these two

ideas can coexist, presumably speaking through the doctor when he says, “So get on the phone,

Roy, and dial the fifteen numbers… because you can call it any damn thing you want, Roy, but

what it boils down to is very bad news.”(31) Why is Roy not allowed to hold this view? If

anything, it may have led to him being one of the few gay men at the time to be able to receive

any new experimental treatments. Again, Mr. Kushner fails to differentiate between the person

and the idea, presenting the audience with a forced dichotomy, of either accepting or denying

Roy’s claim, instead of offering a more nuanced perspective that sees Roy dealing with life the

way he sees fit.

The plays main weakness is its failure to separate our societies platonic ideals from the

physical world we live in. There is a school of thought referred to as platonism, which, “…is the

view that there exist such things as abstract objects — where an abstract object is an object that

does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental.”

(Balaguer) For example, in mathematics there exists objects such as a perfect sphere although no

perfect spheres exist in the real world. Our abstract ideas and truisms about the world are not

counted as wrong merely because someone doesn’t fit within the ideal. Almost no one fits the

description of an angel, which is why Joe’s efforts are ultimately naïve when telling Harper that

he thought he could win with God, in reference to his homosexuality. So do we give up the circle

since it does not inform us about our reality because none exist, or do we use the circle not as an

absolute or particular but as an abstract object separate and sacred which we use as a guiding

force for our beliefs. On the essence of things and matter, The Greek philosopher Plato wrote

that, “as far however as we can attain to a knowledge of [Nature]…we may truly say that fire is
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that part of [Nature] which from time to time is inflamed and water that which is moistened and

that the mother substance becomes earth and air in so far as she receives of them.”(Plato, 471)

Do fires exist between flames? We know from the works of Gödel, Russel, and Tarski, that self-

referential statements cannot be proven, so why do we actively strive to do so when the goal is

futile. Instead of severing the link between ideals and concrete reality, Kushner seems to try and

tear down the ideals altogether, starting fresh from a mish mosh of different people’s

perspectives, all wrapped up so tightly, and the result is just nonsense. This is not subversion of

culture, but a subversion of the arts.

In giving a voice and a sense of humanity to the gay community during a time when

attitudes were not as open-minded as today is commendable. For all its bad, the play has many

redeeming qualities in terms of its subject matter, stylistic elements, and themes; although, the

result is ultimately too cluttered to draw any real meaningful conclusions from the text, turning

Mr. Kushner’s, Angels in America, into one of the abstract objects he seems to reject. If there is

one major takeaway from the play, it is that we must learn to separate our ideals from our reality

and not give into our beliefs as much. Only when we learn to live separate from our ideals, will

we truly be free.
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Works Cited

Balaguer, Mark. “Platonism in Metaphysics.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford

University, 9 Mar. 2016, plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism/.

Kushner, Tony, et al. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes : Revised and
Complete Edition. Vol. Revised edition, Theatre Communications Group, 2013.
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=797400&site=eds-live.

Plato. “Republic. Timaeus. Critias.” Translated by B Jowett, Google Books, Google, 2013,
books.google.com/books?id=aLnWAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA470#v=onepage&q&f=false.