My apologies for the late augmenter post. Hope you enjoy it. The authors of the convener post on Pushkin’s A Feast During the Plague presented us with very interesting questions. They first explain how there’s “a variety of responses to the plague…displayed in [the] play.” And they note that there’s a spread of “emotional responses […]
Read More →Archive for December, 2021
A final convener’s post: thank you, Bryan
For almost ten years, Bryan Waterman has been an integral—dare we say—core part of the NYUAD community. He has shaped an entire generation of students and community members with his spirit, empathy, and leadership. Although he will continue to impact this campus from afar, we wanted to take a moment and celebrate his time in […]
Read More →‘Not Just an AIDS Play’
It’s interesting to see how a play that looks at the AIDS epidemic at a time when not many were willing to talk about it keeps getting reproduced to this date. Why is that so? According to Gary Abrahams, director of a 2017 production of Angels in America, the play goes beyond just talking about […]
Read More →“Aren’t you courageous? What a hero!” – Stolen years of the wife of a closeted gay husband
“I get angry because everyone’s said to him how fantastic, aren’t you courageous, what a hero,” writes Beth. “I wanted to beat the living shit out of him for what he did to our family. There were no repercussions for him. My anger was mind-blowing.” Beth, an Australian woman whose husband came out On the […]
Read More →When AIDS Was Funny
Angels in America takes us back to the AIDS pandemic in America. The play is set in 1985, 4 years after the epidemic first started and 2 years before President Reagan publicly addressed the epidemic by its name (see here for a detailed timeline of HIV/AIDS in America compiled by New York City AIDS Memorial). […]
Read More →The Blessing Angel
In the final Epilogue, Prior, Louis, Belize, and Hannah sat on the rim of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. That was one of the most memorable shots in the HBO series for me. These four characters sit under the giant statues of an angel, surrounded by the wings of the angel. This angel is […]
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