Angels in America by Tony Kushner Page A

you? I decided to like you ’cause you’re the only unfriendly Mormon I ever met.
    HANNAH : Your wig is crooked.
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER : Fix it.
    (Hannah straightens Ella’s wig.)
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER : New York City. All they got there is tiny rooms.
    Â Â Â Â Â  I always thought: People ought to stay put. That’s why I got my license to sell real estate. It’s a way of saying: Have a house! Stay put! It’s a way of saying traveling’s no good. Plus I needed the cash.
    (She takes out a pack of cigarettes from her purse, lights one, offers the pack to Hannah.)
    HANNAH : Not out here, anyone could come by.
    (Ella smokes. Hannah looks out over the ledge.)
    HANNAH : There’s been days I’ve stood at this ledge and thought about stepping over.
    (This is news to Ella.)
    HANNAH : It’s a hard place, Salt Lake: baked dry. Abundant energy; not much intelligence. That’s a combination thatcan wear a body out. No harm looking someplace else. I don’t need much room.
    Â Â Â Â Â  My sister-in-law Libby thinks there’s radon gas in the basement.
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER (Immediately alarmed) : Is there gas in the—
    HANNAH : Of course not. Libby’s a fool.
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER (Still alarmed) : ’Cause I’d have to include that in the description.
    HANNAH (Ending it): There’s no gas, Ella .
    Â Â Â Â Â  (Little pause, then) Give a puff.
    (Hannah takes a furtive drag of Ella’s cigarette. Then she hands the cigarette back to Ella.)
    HANNAH : Put it away now.
    (Ella carefully knocks the ash off the cigarette, extinguishes it and returns it to the pack. Desolate, she looks at Hannah.)
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER : So I guess it’s good-bye.
    HANNAH (Uncomfortable) : You’ll be all right, Ella, I wasn’t ever much of a friend.
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER : I’ll say something but don’t laugh, OK?
    Â Â Â Â Â  (Tentative, careful) This is the home of saints, the godliest place on earth, they say, and I think they’re right. That mean there’s no evil here? No. Evil’s everywhere. Sin’s everywhere. But this . . . is the spring of sweet water in the desert, the desert flower. Every step a Believer takes away from here is a step fraught with peril. I fear for you, Hannah Pitt, because you are my friend. Stay put. This is the right home of saints.
    HANNAH : Latter-day saints.
    SISTER ELLA CHAPTER : Only kind left.
    HANNAH : But still. Late in the day . . . for saints and everyone. That’s all. That’s all.
    Â Â Â Â Â  Fifty thousand dollars for the house, Sister Ella Chapter; don’t undersell. It’s an impressive view.

ACT THREE:
    Not-Yet-Conscious ,
    Forward Dawning
    December 1985
    Scene 1
    Late night, several days after the end of Act Two. Prior’s bedroom, completely dark. Prior is in bed, having a nightmare. He wakes up, sits up in bed, and switches on a lamp. He looks at his clock. Seated by the table near the bed is a man, fierce and gloomy, dressed in the clothing of a thirteenth-century British farmer/squire, carrying a scythe. Prior is terrified .
    PRIOR : Who are you?!
    PRIOR 1 : My name is Prior Walter.
    (Little pause.)
    PRIOR : My name is Prior Walter.
    PRIOR 1 : I know that.
    PRIOR : Explain.
    PRIOR 1 : You’re alive. I’m not. We have the same name. What do you want me to explain?
    PRIOR : A ghost?
    PRIOR 1 : An ancestor.
    PRIOR : Not the Prior Walter? The Bayeux tapestry Prior Walter?
    PRIOR 1 : His great-great-grandson. The fifth of the name.
    PRIOR : I’m the thirty-fourth, I think.
    PRIOR 1 : Actually the thirty-second.
    PRIOR : Not according to Mother.
    PRIOR 1 (Angry!) : She’s including the two bastards, then; I say leave them out. I say no room for bastards! The little things you swallow . . .
    (The ghost snatches up a plastic pill bottle from Prior ’ s night-stand.)
    PRIOR : Pills.
    PRIOR 1 : Pills. For the pestilence. (He struggles to open the