Angels in America by Tony Kushner Page B

bottle but can’t get past the safety cap) I too— (He throws the bottle aside)
    PRIOR : Pestilence . . . You too what?
    PRIOR 1 : The pestilence in my time was much worse than now. Whole villages of empty houses. You could look outdoors and see Death walking in the morning, dew dampening the ragged hem of his black robe. Plain as I see you now.
    PRIOR : You died of the plague.
    PRIOR 1 : The spotty monster. Like you, alone.
    PRIOR : I’m not alone.
    PRIOR 1 : You have no wife, no children.
    PRIOR : I’m gay.
    PRIOR 1 : So? Be gay, dance in your altogether for all I care, what’s that to do with not having children?
    PRIOR : Gay homosexual, not bonny, blithe and—never mind.
    PRIOR 1 : I had twelve. When I died.
    (A second ghost appears, this one dressed in the clothing of an elegant seventeenth-century Londoner.)
    PRIOR 1 (Pointing to the new ghost) : And I was three years younger than him.
    (Prior sees the new ghost and screams!)
    PRIOR : Oh God another one.
    PRIOR 2: Prior Walter. Prior to you by some seventeen others.
    PRIOR 1: He’s counting the bastards.
    PRIOR : Are we having a convention?
    PRIOR 2: We’ve been sent to declare Her fabulous incipience. They love a well-paved entrance with lots of heralds, and—
    PRIOR 1: The messenger come. Prepare the way. The infinite descent, a breath in air—
    PRIOR 2: They chose us, I suspect, because of the mortal affinities. In a family as long-descended as the Walters there are bound to be a few carried off by plague.
    PRIOR 1: The spotty monster.
    PRIOR 2: Black Jack. Came from a water pump, half the city of London, can you imagine? His came from fleas. Yours, I understand, is the lamentable consequence of venery—
    PRIOR 1: Fleas on rats, but who knew that?
    PRIOR : Am I going to die?
    PRIOR 2: We aren’t allowed to discuss—
    PRIOR 1: When you do, you don’t get ancestors to help you through it. You may be surrounded by children but you die alone.
    PRIOR : I’m afraid.
    PRIOR 1 (Grim) : You should be. There aren’t even torches, and the path’s rocky, dark and steep.
    PRIOR 2: Don’t alarm him. There’s good news before there’s bad.
    Â Â Â Â Â  We two come to strew rose petal and palm leaf before the triumphal procession. Prophet. Seer. Revelator. It’s a great honor for the family.
    PRIOR 1: He hasn’t got a family.
    PRIOR 2: I meant for the Walters, for the family in the larger sense.
    PRIOR (Singing) :
    Â Â Â Â Â  All I want is a room somewhere,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Far away from the cold night air—
    PRIOR 2 (Putting a hand on Prior ’ s forehead) : Calm, calm, this is no brain fever . . .
    (Prior keeps his eyes closed. The lights begin to change. Distant Glorious Music.)
    PRIOR 1 (Low chant) : Adonai, Adonai,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Olam ha-yichud,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Zefirot, Zazahot,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Ha-adam, ha-gadol
    Â Â Â Â Â  Daughter of Light,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Daughter of Splendors,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Fluor! Phosphor!
    Â Â Â Â Â  Lumen! Candle!
    PRIOR 2 (Simultaneously, louder than Prior 1) : Even now,
    Â Â Â Â Â  From the mirror-bright halls of Heaven,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Across the cold and lifeless infinity of space,
    Â Â Â Â Â  The Messenger comes
    Â Â Â Â Â  Trailing orbs of light,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Fabulous, incipient,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Oh Prophet,
    Â Â Â Â Â  To you!
    PRIOR 1 AND PRIOR 2: Prepare, prepare,
    Â Â Â Â Â  The Infinite Descent,
    Â Â Â Â Â  A breath, a feather,
    Â Â Â Â Â  Glory to—
    (They vanish.)
    Scene 2
    The next day. Split scene: Prior in an exam room in an outpatient clinic at the hospital; he’s seated on a stool, hooked up to a pentamidine IV drip. Louis and Belize facing one another at a table in a coffee shop. Louis, responding to something Belize has said, is pursuing an idea as he always does, by