'Angels in America' epic opens

"Millennium Approaches," part one of Tony Kushner's epic musical Angels in America, was still hours away from its premiere. The Zellerbach Theatre's 970 seats were still empty. Many of the 33 members of the cast had not yet arrived. But there was definitely something special in the air of the Annenberg Center. "The whole place is pretty much buzzing," explained Annenberg Director of Education Thea Diamond. "Its not every day that something this big comes along." "This," of course, is Angels in America -- a vast, seven-hour, two-part epic, and one of the most critically acclaimed plays in recent American history. The play, which opened Tuesday night and will continue through this weekend, weaves together several stories -- a Mormon couple faces the end of their marriage, a gay couple struggles to deal with the AIDS virus and an honest lawyer who is asked to do a dishonest favor for the infamous Roy Cohn. And looming above it all is the imminent angel. It is a play that it is both humorous and sad, cynical and optimistic. It is, in the words of Carolyn Swift, the actress who plays the angel, "all about the ambivalence of life, the confusion of life." By 6:30 p.m. Tuesday night, the Annenberg Center had begun to fill. "I'm so excited," said College freshman Rachel Goldfarb. "Hearing that this was coming made my entire week!" But getting the show to open on campus was no easy task. "[Playing at Penn] is the biggest risk we've ever undertaken," said Managing Director Steve Goth. "This show cost us twice what we had ever paid before. But this is an extraordinary theatrical event, extremely well done, and it should be on a college campus." The Center decided to charge a top ticket price of $65, compared to a previous price high of $36. And the Annenberg Foundation helped to heavily subsidize student tickets, lowering the prices to $12 for balcony and $25 for orchestra, Goth said. The Center had originally set aside about 1,200 seats at heavily discounted prices for students, which sold out almost immediately, he added. "The student response has been overwhelming," Goth said. Due to the heavy demand, an additional 600 seats were put aside. At 7 p.m. Tuesday, the curtains went up. "We feed off the energy of the audience, especially on opening night," Swift said after the final bow. "They say that theater isn't a 'cure for cancer.' I disagree. Theater, good theater, can cure the soul and enrich the mind. "This is a play about old structures, the body, the family, religions, falling down. Some get built up again. Some should be. Sometimes, though, there are things that we're better off without. We're grown enough without them," she added. "This is what Angels is saying. Change is necessary and good. This is why the audiences identify so much with the play." The applause began before the curtain had even finished falling Tuesday night, and continued well after the cast had left the stage. "Simply breathtaking," said Religious Studies Professor Ann Matter. "Remarkable," agreed College sophomore Edina Ghazarossian. "I loved it." After the performance, ActionAIDS, an AIDS support group, held a fundraiser for a planned Washington West Square AIDS support clinic. "There are things you believe in, and there are things that you expect to make a bundle on," explained Brian Cuffall, an outside consultant to ActionAIDS. "I mean, this isn't Cats. But this is something we believed in, in its strength, in its scope. And I think that it was marvelous."