More Life!

“More Life!” The final words of Angels in America send the audience back out into the world. It’s both a blessing and an instruction. Go, live more life. And may you have More Life. In part 2 of this two-part blog for Angels opening on Broadway it felt right to give a personal account of how Angels has given me both that blessing and instruction over the years. And, in particular, this production.   I can’t claim to have been there at the beginning, at 10 years old I was a bit young. And at 10 years old I wasn’t a person, or from a place where theatre was a part of my life. Angels is part of the reason it is. The actors often say that in eight hours of being torn apart by this play they get less than five minutes redemption to put themselves back together. But often I think that for them, and the audiences, this play is designed to resonate beyond the walls of the theatre. That’s why Prior turns to us at the end. That’s why here the lights come up why...

“Hello and Good Morning” When Susan Brown step out, obscured by Rabbi beard and hat, to utter those words and open Angels in America this Saturday, it is a milestone moment. 26 years, 4 months and 2 days (yes, exactly) after opening on Broadway the Angels have finally flown home, via London. There’s a sense that once again in this play’s history, London quietly created something quite special out of this iconic American play. It’s right that it’s Brown who opens the play. The formidable, often overlooked actress Broadway probably has never heard of but should have. Because despite the star line up above the title there’s a quiet, yes quite British confidence, about a production filled with non-Americans taking on this icon of British theatre. Much like the doubling in the play, the original London production was a ‘double’ of the Broadway (and Los Angeles) productions happening simultaneously.   And yet, through quirks of logistics, the National Theatre en...

Project book update...what month are we now? Let's just say March. So project book. The honest answer dear project book (and pray that my editor isn't reading this) is that you have been sidelined a bit. I joked on Twitter that a muffled scream didn't quite make for a good blog post so I'd better try and articulate this. The reality is that life gets in the way. When you aren't a 'proper' academic, and even when you are. I've been settling into a new part time temp job, which hopefully is giving me chance to really get into a writing routine with this and...the other reason I've been a bit behind: several other projects on the go. And there is a tenuous link there. Firstly I have a play being produced, by the wonderful team at ClockTower Theatre   my play 'Don't Send Flowers' is part of their Fifth season and is being produced later this year. But that means re-writes. Meanwhile, I've also been commissioned to write another pl...

I really tried to stay out of some of the debacle around a certain magazine article. But I have always had strong opinions on the 'shoulds and shouldn'ts around this play. And I also have strong opinions on the labels our so-called community forces on us.  So in a blog of two halves, the professional and personal here is my write-back to that W magazine interview with Lee Pace.   The first half relates to this play. I've been around the block with it enough times to know many people have strong opinions on who can and can't be in/work on/like this play. Firstly, the only person with any say in two of those categories is Tony Kushner. The latter nobody has say on. As a woman, born in 1984, in the UK who through virtue of those things does not identify as a gay American Man, I've had my share of criticism for working on the play. The idea that somehow my 'understanding' or 'love' of it was different. That is was somehow driven of som...