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Oct 09, 2017roystreet rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
This is long, but generally interesting: good acting and production values. But is it still relevant?. I see that the National Theatre has mounted a production featuring Nathan Lane and former Spiderman Andrew Garfield. Why? The play's treatment of the AIDS story seems dated; the coda mercilessly exposes the sentimentality of the author's "message." Likewise the episodes featuring the wife: boring! You can safely fast forward. Clearly, the author's most intense emotional connections are with the negative characters: with the closeted lawyer and most of all with Roy Cohn, whose political heir is, of course, Donald Trump. Al Pacino's portrayal is over-the-top and un-turn-away-able. The whole angel thing was, for me, a misfire. Though it is spectacular, it ends up sidetracking the drama. The scenes in heaven (conceived with a gay New Yorker's love/hate for San Francisco and filmed in Italy at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli) are anti-climactic, ill-conceived, and badly written. As just one proof, even with the director's help, the poor actor playing Prior can't deliver the lines in a convincing way.