Angels in America (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 1

It is late-October, 1985, and Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz stands alone next to a small coffin, conducting the funeral service for Sarah Ironson. In his eulogy for the deceased, he describes her as a caring, devoted wife and mother who traveled from Eastern Europe to America to make a home for herself and the Jewish people in “the melting pot where nothing melted.” Rabbi Chemelwitz says Sarah was “the last of the Mohicans,” and warns that soon, “all the old will be dead.”

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 2

The same day as the funeral, Roy Cohn is visited in his office by Joseph Porter Pitt. Roy is a vulgar man, who screams and swears as he juggles three different conversations on his office phone. Joe is a Mormon, sensitive to Roy’s foul language but eager to advance his career. He is an attorney who has been working as a law clerk in the Court of Appeals, and Roy is ready to give him his big break: He wants the younger man to go to Washington and work for the Justice Department, where he can be Roy’s eyes and ears. Joe is stunned, appreciative, and agrees to discuss the opportunity with his wife.

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 3

Joe’s wife, Harper, spends her days alone, often in a haze from sedatives she takes, and longing for a closer relationship with her husband, who is drifting further and further away from her. This scene begins with Harper sitting at home, listening to the radio, and talking to herself. She fantasizes about the ozone layer, and what it must look like from space, where “guardian angels, hands linked, make a sort of spherical net, a blue-green nesting orb, a shell of safety for life itself.” Alternately paranoid and visionary, Harper is like the canary in a coal mine. She is more sensitive to danger than ordinary people, yet unable to save herself from the trouble ahead.

She is caught in the midst of her reverie by Mr. Lies, an imaginary travel agent who offers to take her on a vacation away from her worries — perhaps to Antarctica or the ozone layer. Harper complains to Mr. Lies that she is worried about the coming third millennium, when all sorts of strange things could happen.

This time, her fantasy is interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Joe. Once again late coming home, Joe claims to have been “out walking” and pitches his news to Harper: Would she like to move to Washington?

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 4

Back at the funeral, Louis and Prior are sitting outside the funeral home, waiting for the service to continue at the cemetery. Louis is Sarah Ironson’s grandson, though he hadn’t visited her much since she moved into the Bronx Home of Aged Hebrews ten years earlier. The two men have been in a committed relationship for four years and banter with each other about their cat, who has run away, and Louis’s closeted homosexuality at family gatherings, where he insists on calling himself “Lou” (to avoid the sibilant S, Prior jokes).

As the couple reflects on life and loss, Prior reveals something startling: He has developed a purple lesion on his arm. It is Kaposi’s sarcoma, “the wine dark kiss of the angel of death,” and an early visual sign of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). He has been hiding the mark for awhile, afraid that Louis might leave him when he found out. Louis reacts angrily.

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 5

This scene is split between Joe and Harper at home and Louis at the cemetery with the Rabbi and his grandmother’s coffin. It is at this point that the relationships of the central couples — Joe and Harper, Louis and Prior — begin to disintegrate.

Joe pursues the subject of his new career opportunity with Harper, trying to convince her that Washington, D.C., would be a fine place to live. Harper is afraid of more change, however, and insists on staying put. Joe observes that her medication may be the cause of her anxiety.

Meanwhile, in the cemetery, Louis quizzes the Rabbi on the church’s view of someone who abandons a loved one in great need. He is planning to leave Prior because he cannot face life with Prior’s disease. The Rabbi, however, is more concerned with getting himself home, across town, than with counseling the confused Louis.

At the Pitt house, Joe speaks idealistically about the new America, led by the Republican conservatism of Ronald Reagan, a chord struck again later in the play by Roy and his assistant, Martin. Harper has no room for political idealism in her life. She is suspicious of Joe’s “walks” and tries to rekindle desire between them by offering him sexual favors and asking for a baby. Joe turns away, obviously uncomfortable with her suggestions, and Harper drifts back into her troubled delirium, mumbling, “The world’s coming to an end.”

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 6

Joe finds Louis crying in the men’s room of the offices of the Brooklyn Federal Court of Appeals, where they both work. Louis is mourning the sickness of his companion and upset about his decision to leave the AIDS-stricken Prior. Joe tries to comfort him and is “outed” by Louis, who recognizes immediately that the self-proclaimed Reaganite attorney is gay. On his way out the door, Louis playfully kisses Joe on the cheek.

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 7

Sometime after Joe and Louis meet in the men’s room, Harper and Prior find each other in a mutual dream scene. In his dream, Prior is seated at a table, applying drag makeup and musing about the distance between the life he longs to lead and the one his sickness has handed him, when Harper appears in a valium-induced hallucination. They confront each other with “revelations.” She sees the disease in him but insists there is a part deep inside that is still clean and healthy. He drops the news that her husband, Joe, is a homosexual, something she has been suspecting for a while.

After Harper leaves the dream, a feather floats to the ground and a voice from above calls to Prior, telling him to “prepare the way” for the “infinite descent.”

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 8

In another split scene, the two couples are back with their respective partners — Harper and Joe at home, Louis and Prior in bed. Harper summons the courage to confront her husband with the truth they have both been denying. She begs him to confess to her that he is a homosexual, that their marriage has been a facade and a sin against their Mormon religion. Still, given the opportunity to reveal his secret, Joe resists and will say only that he is “a very good man who has worked very hard to become good.”

In the other part of the scene, Prior’s illness is getting worse, his symptoms more severe, yet Louis cannot even bear to hear him talk about it, let along comfort his lover. Looking for an opportunity of his own, Louis asks Prior if he would hate him for walking out. “Yes,” Prior responds.

Millennium Approaches: Act I, Scene 9

In a doctor’s office, Henry, Cohn’s physician, breaks the news to his patient that Roy has AIDS. The lawyer, however, refuses the diagnosis. He does so not because he is afraid of death or disease but because of the social stigma attached: “Roy Cohn is not a homosexual,” he tells Henry, “Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man who fucks around with guys.”

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 1

A month has gone by, and Prior is deteriorating rapidly. In the middle of the night, late in December, Louis finds him on the floor, incontinent and in terrible pain. Louis wants to call for an ambulance, but Prior is afraid if he goes to the hospital he won’t return. He faints in Louis’s arms.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 2

The same night, a similar crisis occurs at the Pitt home. Harper’s mental anguish is beginning to match Prior’s physical suffering. She tells Joe that she feels herself “going off again,” slipping away into her pills and troubled dreams. She even suggests it is time for him to leave her, to go off to Washington alone, but he refuses.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 3

It is one in the morning the next day and Louis is sitting near Prior’s bed in a hospital, discussing his condition with Emily, a nurse. He tells her about the significance of Prior’s name. It is an old, respected name in the Walters family, which dates back to the Norman Conquest (the overthrow of the government of England in 1066 by the forces of Normandy).

Louis’s musings on Prior’s family history agitates his despair. While Prior’s ancestors have been clinging to each other for generations, through wars, death, and the long march of history, Louis can’t stand the suffering he sees now. On his way out the door, for a walk in the park, he asks the nurse to tell Prior goodbye for him.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 4

An hour later, Louis is in Central Park, having sex in the bushes with a stranger. When their condom breaks, the harried Louis tells the man, “Keep going. Infect me. I don’t care.” But the man is frightened away by Louis’s strange behavior.

Meanwhile, in a scene that overlaps Louis’s park misadventure, Joe is at a bar with Roy, seeking some solace of his own. He is torn between the sense of duty he feels as a Mormon and as a husband to Harper and the sense of dedication he has, to his work and to Roy. The elder attorney goads him, telling him that, “Everyone who makes it in this world makes it because somebody older and more powerful takes an interest.” Roy would like to be that somebody for Joe, helping him establish himself in the big time politics of Washington, D.C. To further leverage his position, and take advantage of Joe’s sensitivity, Roy admits that he his dying, though he tells Joe it is cancer that is killing him.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 5

A few days later, Prior is still in his hospital bed, sick but improving. He is visited by Belize, the duty nurse, who is a black former drag queen and, coincidentally, former lover of Prior’s. Belize tries to comfort him with an assortment of herbal “voodoo” remedies and a listening ear. Prior is distressed about Louis’s absence and confused about a voice he keeps hearing — a voice that is a little frightening but strangely comforting and arousing. After Belize leaves, the Voice is heard. It tells Prior to prepare for a marvelous work that must be done, then disappears.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 6

It is January, 1986, a few weeks later, and Joe and Roy are meeting Martin, a Reagan Administration Justice Department lawyer in a Manhattan restaurant. The purpose of the rendezvous is to give Joe the hard sell. Because he borrowed half a million dollars from a client (and failed to repay it), Roy is being threatened with disbarment by the New York State Bar Association, and he desperately wants Joe to take a job with the Justice Department, where he can help Roy’s case. Joe is disturbed by the ethics of the situation and still concerned about Harper, but he agrees to think about it some more.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 7

Joe and Louis run into each other during lunch on the steps of the Hall of Justice building in Brooklyn. Both men are feeling extreme anxiety, which shows itself in different ways. Louis jokes about Republican politics and his spontaneous behavior. Joe admits to feeling overwhelmed and wishing sometimes that everything he was obligated to, including justice and love, would just go away. For a moment they connect and Louis offers to keep Joe company, but Joe retreats and they go their separate ways.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 8

That night, drunk and desperate, Joe stands at a payphone in Central Park and calls his Mormon mother in Salt Lake City to confess that he is a homosexual. Confused and angry, his mother tells him he’s being ridiculous, drinking is a sin and he should go home to his wife. She hangs up on him.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 9

The next morning, Joe nearly confesses the truth to Harper. He admits he has never been attracted to her and that he is the source of many of her problems and hallucinations. She gets more and more agitated by his confession and finally calls for Mr. Lies to take her away. He shows up, dressed in Antarctic explorer’s gear, and they promptly disappear. At the same time, Louis breaks the news to Prior that he will not be coming back; as much as he loves Prior, he can’t cope with his disease.

Millennium Approaches: Act II, Scene 10

Nearly a continent away, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Joe’s mother, Hannah, stands in front of her house with Sister Ella Chapter. Hannah has decided to sell the house and move away and has enlisted her friend Sister Ella to help with the sale. They discuss the Mormon life in Salt Lake, and Sister Ella warns Hannah that the world outside is a dangerous place.

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 1

Alone in his apartment, Prior wakes from a nightmare to find an apparition dressed in the clothes of a thirteenth-century British squire seated next to his bed. The ghost introduces himself as another Prior Walter (Prior 1) — the fifth in the Walter family line. He is soon joined by another Prior Walter (Prior 2), a ghost from seventeenth-century London. Both men died young from plagues — as it seems Prior will as well — and they have been sent to prepare the way for “the messenger.” They call Prior a prophet and seer, chant mysteriously, and disappear, echoing the same words as the Voice from earlier scenes: “Prepare, prepare, The Infinite Descent, A breath, a feather, Glory to. . . .”

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 2

In a split scene, Louis and Belize sit in a coffee shop, passionately discussing race, sexual identity, and politics, while, at the hospital, Emily delivers a medicated IV drip to Prior. In the middle of a frenzied tirade, Louis tells Belize that one of America’s problems is its lack of spirituality. “There are no angels in America,” he rants, “no spiritual past, no racial past, there’s only the political.” Louis’s contradictory opinions, particularly his views on the importance of race, anger Belize, who is running out of patience with Louis’s hysterics. Although Louis calms down, expresses his love for Prior, and asks about his condition, he is still afraid to be near him. Belize leaves Louis behind, frustrated and confused.

Meanwhile, Prior describes the current state of his illness to Emily. Many of his physical symptoms have receded, but he fears he is losing his mind. In the middle of their conversation, he imagines she is speaking Hebrew to him. Then, while she is writing her report, he sees a giant book with a flaming Aleph (the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) rise up through the floor, slam shut, and disappear. Emily notices nothing, and Prior runs away.

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 3

Fleeing a reality she cannot confront, and caught up in her own hallucination, Harper appears in Antarctica with Mr. Lies. A light snow is falling, and she is imagining how she can build a city of her own in the ice, befriend an Eskimo, and give birth to a baby girl with thick white fur and a marsupial pouch. Mr. Lies observes that what she is experiencing is “a retreat, a vacuum, its virtue is that it lacks everything; deep-freeze for the feelings.”

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 4

Hannah Porter Pitt, Joe’s mother, arrives in New York after selling her home in Salt Lake City. She waited several hours at the airport for her son to meet her, then took a bus in search of Brooklyn, and ended up being deposited at the final stop on the driver’s route: the Bronx. She meets a homeless woman, mumbling to herself and warming her hands by a trash fire in an oil drum. The Woman gives her directions to the Mormon Visitor’s Center and sends her on her way with the suggestion that, “In the new century I think we will all be insane.”

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 5

While Hannah is in search of Joe, he is across town at Roy’s house, breaking some bad news to the ailing attorney: Joe will not be going to Washington on Roy’s behalf. He explains to Roy that his wife is missing, his mother is on her way, and he finds himself unable to break the law, even for the mentor he claims to love as a father. Angry and toying with Joe, Roy smiles at first, accepting his decision, then shouts insults at him and pushes him across the room. After Joe leaves, Roy collapses on the floor. His own illness is beginning to overtake him. In his delirium he sees the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg — the woman he sent to the electric chair years before as a traitor to her country. She warns Roy that she will be seeing him soon, in death, then calmly picks up the phone and dials an ambulance for him.

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 6

Prior is in his bedroom with the ghosts of his ancestors — Prior 1 and Prior 2. They are trying to help him prepare for the mysterious arrival he has been warned about. To help him relax, they conjure a spectral image of Louis for him to dance with. As Prior and the imaginary Louis dance, the two ghosts disappear. Then, suddenly, Louis vanishes and the sound of wings fills the room.

Millennium Approaches: Act III, Scene 7

Louis and Joe meet in the park. Each man is desperate for some kind of meaningful contact but filled with doubt and self-hatred for their recent actions. Finally, they kiss, then walk away together, as the scene’s focus changes to Prior’s apartment. The sound of the wings is getting louder and louder, until finally a deafening din fills the room, the lights flicker, change colors, then plunge into darkness. There is a tremendous crash, followed by a brilliant white light, and the Angel of America appears, floating over Prior’s bed. “Greetings, Prophet,” she addresses him, “The Great Work begins: The Messenger has arrived.”

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 1

The second part of Angels in America begins in Moscow at the Soviet Kremlin, where Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the world’s oldest living Bolshevik, is delivering a passionate speech about the need for a practical political theory to guide his country. Near the end of his oration, a great crashing sound is heard, and the scene changes to reveal the tableau at the end of Millennium Approaches: Prior cowering in his bed with the Angel of America hovering in the air above him. Once again she tells him, “The Messenger has arrived” Prior replies, “Go away.”

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 2

Louis and Joe appear at Louis’s apartment. There is an initial awkward moment, as Joe nearly loses his resolve and leaves; but Louis manages to seduce him with kindness and tenderness. As the two men begin kissing and caressing each other, the scene changes to Harper’s imaginary Antarctica.

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 3

Mr. Lies is sitting by himself, playing the oboe, when Harper appears with a small pine tree. The sounds in the background keep changing from the sea and the wind to the din of city traffic, as Harper begins to fade in and out of her fantasy. In her dream, Joe appears, wrapped only in Louis’s bed sheet. She accuses him of falling out of love with her and begs him to come back. He refuses and vanishes, leaving her alone in the park with the flashing lights of a police car.

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 4

Hannah has managed to find Joe and Harper’s apartment in Brooklyn. As she walks in the door, the phone rings. The call is from the police, who have found Harper in Prospect Park with the pine tree she apparently chewed down. Hannah asks the caller not to send Harper to the hospital and agrees to come and collect her “peculiar” daughter-in-law.

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 5

Back in his apartment, Prior has turned a corner in his battle with disease. His encounter with the Angel, which he now thinks was a dream, caused him to have an orgasm in his sleep, and for the first time in months he is feeling exhilarated. He calls Belize at the hospital to tell him the good news. Shortly afterward, Belize calls him back with some news of his own: Roy Cohn has just checked in with AIDS.

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 6

Lying in his hospital bed, sick and scared, Roy is as irascible as ever. When Belize comes in to administer an IV drip, Roy hurls a string of foul-mouthed, bigoted epithets at him that causes Belize to bristle and threaten the dying man. As offensive as Roy is, and as much as Belize hates him for what he represents, the nurse can’t help but feel sorry for the patient. He warns Roy not to accept the radiation his doctor will surely prescribe and suggests he use whatever contacts he has to secure a trustworthy supply of azidothymidine (AZT), the only drug being prescribed that seems to have some effect on the AIDS virus. After Belize leaves, Roy phones Martin and blackmails him into finding the AZT he needs.

Perestroika: Act I, Scene 7

A split scene between Louis’s bedroom in Alphabetland and the Pitt apartment in Brooklyn shows three weeks in the lives of Joe and Louis, Harper and Hannah. After finally breaking through to one another, Louis and Joe are spending as much time as they can in bed, in each other’s arms. They have sex, argue politics and religion, and try to forget the relationships they have left behind. At the same time, Hannah is working on Harper, trying to retrieve her from her madness by getting her to go to work at the Mormon Visitor’s Center. Though he claims to be happy and sleep peacefully through the night, Joe is haunted by visions of Harper, who appears to taunt him for being in love with Louis.

Perestroika: Act II, Scene 1

Prior accompanies Belize to the funeral of a mutual friend, who happened to be a well-known New York City drag queen. Prior’s appearance and demeanor have changed. He is dressed all in black, wearing a long coat with a fringed scarf wrapped around his head, and he has become very introspective. He explains to Belize that the Angel he thought he dreamt was actually real and that he has become a prophet of some kind.

Perestroika: Act II, Scene 2

To illustrate Prior’s story, the scene changes to his bedroom three weeks earlier and the arrival of the Angel. While Belize stands nearby and watches, Prior replays his encounter with the celestial being. She has come to instruct Prior in the ways of prophecy, to reveal to him the hidden location of the implements of divination (under the tile near his kitchen sink). She explains to him that God created the world for His pleasure, then split it into two parts — men and women — in order to release the potential for change. As people evolved and sought more and more change, God grew fascinated with his creation’s curiosity and eventually left Heaven to pursue the experience for himself. Prior has been charged with spreading the word to humanity: They must stop moving, stop changing, in order to restore God to Heaven and put the universe right again.

The flashback disappears, and Prior rejoins Belize in front of the funeral home. Belize thinks Prior’s vision is simply a reaction to his illness and the loss of Louis, but Prior is nearly convinced. “Maybe I am a prophet,” he tells his friend, “Maybe the world has driven God from Heaven, incurred the angels’ wrath.” And it has been left to Prior to run away or help find God again.

Perestroika: Act III, Scene I

It is February, 1986, a week later. Roy is in his hospital room trying to manage his disbarment hearing by telephone, with the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg standing a deathwatch over him. Belize appears with Roy’s prescribed medication and learns the conniving lawyer has secured his own private stash of AZT — more than he could use in fifty years. Roy refuses to share any of the coveted drugs. He and Belize exchange racial insults, and Belize simply takes a few bottles, leaving Roy alone with Ethel and convulsed with pain.

Perestroika: Act III, Scene 2

The same day, across town, Prior pays a visit to the Mormon Visitor’s Center, where Hannah and Harper have become volunteer caretakers. He tells Harper he is an “Angelologist” conducting research on Angels and his fieldwork has led him to the Mormons. The principal attraction at the Center is the Diorama Room, where mannequins arranged in a wagon-train tableau on a little stage depict a Mormon family’s trek from Missouri to Salt Lake. Together, they listen to the recorded reenactment.

Fantasy and reality blur as the mechanical figures relate the history of the Mormons’ westward journey. The real Louis walks into the scene and argues with the Mormon father, who looks like Joe. It is a hallucination shared by both Prior and Harper, and it ends when both figures walk off the stage together. Harper pulls the curtain closed as Hannah returns to check on her guest. Not understanding Harper’s dementia or Prior’s visions of angels, she tells them the diorama is closing for repairs and it is time to leave. Left alone, Harper talks to the Mormon Mother in the diorama, who comes to life and escorts her away.

Perestroika: Act III, Scene 3

That afternoon, Joe and Louis are sitting in the dunes at Jones Beach, a once-popular spot for homosexual encounters. They are watching the waves roll over the sand. Joe swears his love for Louis and offers to give up anything for him, including his religion. Louis, however, longs to see Prior again and is beginning to realize his love for his sick companion is greater than his fear of Prior’s disease.

Perestroika: Act III, Scene 4

Joe and Louis remain on stage as the scene splits to include the New York Hospital. It is late at night, and Belize enters Roy’s hospital room to administer his medication. The morphine in Roy’s IV drip is causing him to hallucinate, and he mistakes the nurse for the incarnation of Death, coming to take him away.

Perestroika: Act III, Scene 5

The scene splits again, as Harper and the Mormon Mother from the Visitor’s Center diorama appear at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Harper is seeking advice from the Mother. She wants to know how people change. While the women discuss the pain and suffering change causes, the scene splits a final time to reveal Prior at home, removing his prophet attire and taking his medication. The four separate scenes now include all the major characters in the play. Louis leaves Joe sitting on the beach, walks to a phone booth, and calls Prior.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 1

It is the next day, and a split scene shows two attempted reconciliations. At the hospital, Joe is visiting Roy, whose condition is deteriorating rapidly. At first the forgiveness Joe seeks seems at hand: The dying Roy offers his blessing of life to his protege. Then Joe, trying to win more approval, tells Roy about his new relationship with Louis. Roy is enraged and leaps from his bed to attack Joe. Belize rushes in to restore order, forcing Roy back into bed and sending Joe away.

At the same time, Louis and Prior meet on a park bench. Prior, who is ready to make Louis’s reunion as difficult as possible, is further hurt and angered to discover that Louis does not want to return to him; he merely wants some understanding between them. Prior surprises Louis by telling him he knows about his new lover and even knows he is a Mormon. Louis’s defense is that he needed companionship. Disgusted, Prior walks away, leaving Louis alone on the bench.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 2

In an attempt to face his frustration, Prior drags Belize to the Hall of Justice in Brooklyn to find Joe and confront the man who has replaced him in Louis’s life. The duo stumbles into Joe’s office, then promptly lose their resolve. Prior sees a handsome, healthy man he can’t compete against; Belize recognizes Joe as the law clerk from Roy’s hospital room. They scramble away before Joe can catch them.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 3

The next day, Louis and Belize meet at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, one of Prior’s favorite spots. Louis wants Belize to help him communicate with Prior, but the nurse is too frustrated with Louis’s antics. He tells Louis about their visit to Joe and shocks him with the news that Joe is connected with the villainous Roy Cohn.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 4

At the same time, in the Mormon Visitor’s Center, Joe and his mother, Hannah, appear together for the first time. Like Louis, Joe is hesitantly searching for his mate, seeking some kind of absolution for his terrible behavior but not knowing exactly what he wants. Hannah is stern with him but still wants to help somehow. Between them, they realize that Harper has run away, and Joe leaves to find her.

Prior appears at the Center, passing Joe on his way out. He has come to warn Joe about Louis, that he is weak and unfaithful, but turns to Hannah instead. As he tries to deliver his message, his illness overtakes him and he collapses. Hannah helps him up and they head off to the hospital.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 5

Late that afternoon Joe finds Harper, barefoot and without a coat, standing in the freezing rain at the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights. She is staring at the Manhattan skyline and trying desperately to come to terms with her scattered life. Joe collects his wounded wife, and they head toward home.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 6

At the hospital, Emily examines Prior and scolds him for ruining his condition, just when he was getting better. Prior tries to explain his encounters with the Angel to Hannah, who tells him he had a vision like the one the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith had. The two are trying to come to terms with each other, when a roll of thunder warns Prior that the Angel is returning for him. Hannah promises to stay by his side and watch over him.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 7

Joe and Harper are lying in bed. Apparently, they have just had sex, and Harper tries again to get Joe to admit his homosexual urges to her. They are right back where they were before, which is too much for Joe to handle. He rises, dresses, and again leaves her behind.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 8

Later that night, Joe visits Louis at his apartment. On Belize’s advice, Louis has been researching Roy Cohn and the legal decisions Joe has ghost written for the judge he serves. Many of the decisions have been extremely conservative and, in Louis’s estimation, unethical. They argue about the cases, Joe’s scruples, and his relationship with Roy Cohn. Their debate turns into a brawl, and, in his rage, Joe beats Louis severely. He tries to apologize, but Louis sends him away.

Perestroika: Act IV, Scene 9

Back in Roy’s hospital room, the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg has arrived with some terrible news for the near-dead man: he has been disbarred. For all his struggles, he will not be a lawyer when he dies. As his final act of petty revenge, Roy tricks Ethel into singing him a lullaby. When she is finished, he brags that he finally made Ethel Rosenberg sing (to “sing” is slang for a confession; this is a reference to the confession the historical Roy Cohn never won from Rosenberg during her trial). Cohn dies.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 1

The Angel returns. It is much later the same night in Prior’s hospital room, and Hannah has fallen asleep in a chair near Prior’s bed. An eerie light appears, then blackness and thunder, and the Angel materializes. Although terrified, Hannah manages to offer Prior advice: wrestle with the Angel and demand to be released from his role as Prophet. Prior grapples with the Angel, and the two wrestle around the room amidst screeching voices, blasts of music, and strange flashes of light. Finally the Angel relents. A ladder appears, leading up to Heaven, and the Angel invites Prior to climb it and return the Book of Prophecy he has been given.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 2

Prior appears in Heaven, dressed in robes like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Heaven looks like San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906. He meets Harper, who is not dead but merely visiting after her sexual encounter with Joe. Harper disappears and the scenery changes to the Hall of the Upper Orders. The Angel appears to escort Prior to a meeting with the rest of the angelic Continental Principalities.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 3

Down on earth, Belize has called Louis to Roy’s deathbed. He wants him to say the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, over Roy’s body, then take the dead man’s stash of AZT. Louis refuses at first, objecting to prayer for such an evil man and protesting that he doesn’t remember any Jewish rituals. Guided by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, however, Louis manages to recite the entire ceremony.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 4

Joe returns to his apartment in Brooklyn, looking for Harper. Instead he finds the ghost of Roy, who witnessed the fight he had with Louis. Roy commends Joe on his viciousness, kisses him, then vanishes, just as Harper walks through the door.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 5

The scene changes quickly back to Heaven, where the Continental Principalities are gathered in their Council Room. They are huddled around a damaged 1940s model radio, listening to news from earth that tells them what the future holds for God’s creation below. A crackling report tells them about a disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant that will occur in two months. The Angel of Antarctica remarks that he/she will be happy to watch the humans suffer, since they are responsible for the misery in Heaven since God left. The group begins arguing about technology, like their radio and nuclear power, and the course of human events, when suddenly the Angel of America appears with Prior.

Prior informs the Angels that he wants to return the book he has been given, abandon his role as prophet, and go back to living his life as before, miserable as he might be. The Angels try to convince him that everyone on earth would be happier if he would help convince them to stop moving and changing, but Prior is determined not to cooperate. Regardless of the suffering it entails, ‘I want more life,” he tells the assembly. He adds that, if God returns, they should sue Him for abandoning everyone. Prior exits.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 6

Out on the streets of Heaven, Prior encounters Sarah Ironson, Louis’s dead grandmother, and Isidor Chemelwitz, the Rabbi who performed her funeral service at the beginning of Millennium Approaches. They are seated on wooden crates playing cards. The Rabbi helps Prior conjure the ladder back to earth, and Sarah encourages him to struggle with the Almighty, because after all, “It’s the Jewish way.”

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 7

In a quick scene, Prior passes Roy on his journey back to earth. Roy is standing waist-deep in a smoldering pit, seemingly talking to God about the abandonment suit the Angels are bringing against him. As the slickest lawyer in Heaven or Hell, Roy agrees to represent God, even though, he tells his holy client, “You’re guilty as hell.”

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 8

Back in his bed in the hospital, Prior wakes from his adventure in Heaven like Dorothy in the The Wizard of Oz. He tries to tell Belize, Emily, and Hannah about the Angels and how he only wanted to go home again, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Louis. Emily leaves to finish her rounds of the hospital wards, Hannah goes to put her life back in order, and on his way out, Belize offers Prior Cohn’s AZT horde. Louis tells Prior he wants to come back.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 9

The two troubled couples go their separate ways. Harper confronts Joe in their apartment and demands his credit card so she can go off and start a life of her own. As consolation, she offers Joe her valium and suggests he goes exploring. At the same time, in the hospital room, Prior tells Louis he still loves him, but he can’t come back.

Perestroika: Act V, Scene 10

The scene splits to include Harper on board a jet plane, headed for San Francisco. She describes a dream she had in which the souls of the dying on earth floated up in the sky, where they took the place of the angels and repaired holes in the ozone.

Perestroika: Epilogue

Prior, Louis, Belize, and Hannah are gathered at the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, Prior’s favorite spot, four years later. The world has changed somewhat — the Berlin Wall has fallen and through the Russian leader Gorbachev’s policy of “Perestroika” the Cold War seems to be over. Prior is living with his disease and plans to live longer still. Together, the group relates the story of the angel Bethesda, who appeared in the Temple square in Jerusalem long ago. Where the angel landed, a fountain appeared that could heal anyone who walked through its waters. Hopefully, they say, the fountain will appear again when the Millennium comes and everyone will be healed and purified. Prior blesses the audience, wishes them “More Life,” and tells them: “The Great Work Begins.”