Angels in America
By Tony KushnerPrior Walter is a homosexual man, living in New York City in 1985. He has recently been diagnosed with AIDS. He is the hero of this play. In this monologue, he is talking to his live-in boyfriend, Louis.
PRIOR:
One of my ancestors was a ship's captain who made money bringing whale oil to Europe and returning with immigrants - Irish, mostly, packed in tight, so many dollars per head. The last ship he captured foundered off the coast of Nova Scotia in a winter tempest and sank to the bottom. He went down with the ship - La Grande Geste - but his crew took seventy women and kids in the ship's only longboat, this big, open rowboat, and when the weather got too rough, and they thought the boat was overcrowded, the crew started lifting people up and hurling them into the sea. Until the got the ballast right. They walked up and down the longboat, eyes to the waterline, and when the boat rode too low in the water, they'd grab the nearest passenger and throw them into the sea. The boat was leaky, see; seventy people; they arrived in Halifax with nine people on board. (Pause.) I think about that story a lot now. People in a boat, waiting, terrified, while implacable, unsmiling men, irresistibly strong, seize... maybe the person next to you, maybe you, and with no warning at all, with time only for a quick intake of air you are pitched into freezing, turbulent water and salt and darkness to drown.
Prior is speaking to Belize. This is after he sees the Angel for the first time, and after Louis has abandoned him.
PRIOR:
Then I'm crazy! The whole world is, why not me? It's 1986 and there's a plague, half my friends are dead and I'm only thirty-one, every goddamn morning I wake up and I think Louis is next to me in the bed and it takes me long minutes to remember...that this is real, it isn't just an impossible, terrible dream, so maybe, yes, I'm flipping out!
Or maybe I am a prophet. Not just me, all of us who are dying now. Maybe we've caught the virus of prophecy. Be still. Toil no more. Maybe the world has driven God from Heaven, incurred the angels' wrath. I believe I've seen the end of things. And having seen, I'm going blind, as prophets do. It makes a certain sense to me...
Prior, speaking to Louis. In the park, a few days or even weeks after Louis has abandoned Prior, and started seeing Joe. Prior knows that Louis has wasted no time in moving on, while he is dying. Trying to defend himself, Louis says, "He's just company! Companionship."
PRIOR:
Companionship. Oh.
You know just when I think he couldn't possibly say anything to make it worse, he does. Companionship. How good. I wouldn't want you to be lonely!
There are thousands of people in New York City with AIDS, and nearly every one of them is being taken care of by...a friend or by...a lover who has stuck by them through things worse than my...So far. Everyone got that, except me. I got you. Why? What's wrong with me? (Louis has begun to cry.)
Louis? Are you really bruised inside?
Answer me! Inside: Bruises?
Come back to me when they're visible! I want to see black and blue, Louis, I want to see blood. Because I can't believe you even have blood in your veins till you show it to me. So don't come near me again, unless you've got something to show!
In Heaven. Prior has been told by the Angel that he can choose whether or not to return to Earth. He chooses yes, but she argues with him. He defends his decision, and offers a suggestion for what the Angels should do if the God who abandoned them should ever return.
PRIOR:
But still. Still. Bless me anyway.
I want more life. I can't help myself. I do.
I've lived through such terrible times, and there are people who live through much, much worse, but...You see them living anyway.
When they're more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they're burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children, they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die. But I recognize the habit. The addiction to being alive. We live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough, so inadequate, but...Bless me anyway. I want more life.
God isn't coming back. And even if He did...If He ever did come back, if He ever dared to show his face in the Garden again...If after all this destruction, if after all the terrible days of this terrible century He returned, to see how much suffering his abandonment had created, if He ever returns, you should sue the bastard. That's my only contribution to all this Theology. Sue the bastard for walking out. How dare He!
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