I'm on Team Brown here. She articulated so much that I felt but could never cohere into thought. Now that I don't feel like I'm fundamentally broken for not loving it, I'm oddly much more willing to keep hurling myself at this play (Perestroika especially, oof) to try for a fresh experience.

Obviously the play is a "big deal". It's part of a festival with all sorts of affiliated events. It's the only production of the Intiman this year. The mayor was at the opening.

Even so I think it's a bit much to consider it the definitive play about AIDS. Just as it's a bit much to consider criticism of it or this staging as "heretical". I don't know plays that well, but certainly a great many books and films I'm familiar with have tackled different stories about AIDS. It's a big topic and there is no definitive story.

I thought Michael Strangeways' review did a good job for me of condensing some thoughts that I had after seeing the play. I'm not confident enough in my own opinions about plays, but looking back a lot of his review resonated with me.

http://www.seattlegayscene.com/2014/08/i…

Overall, I greatly enjoyed the play and am looking forward to episode two. Even if it isn't the definitive play about AIDS or the definitive staging of Angels in America, I found the story very moving and the experience of seeing the play very enjoyable.

All this reminds me of back when Showtime was running the American Queer As Folk. Some of my peers came unglued, because that show didn't tell the right story, didn't tell their story, was too sordid, it was not sordid enough, yada yada yada. The truth was, it was only one TV show. It could never be everything to everybody. So now one reviewer is unsatisfied because Angels in America doesn't tell the right story for her. Yawn. This is one theater piece, it's not the fucking Rosetta Stone. Andrew's staging of Act 1 is a dazzling, live, high wire accomplishment(pardon the pun). I'm looking forward eagerly to the conclusion. Angels can survive one churlish review. 'The world only spins forward,'

It's kind of hilarious that the one that accuses her of missing the point focuses on the one phrase "the AIDS play" and skips everything else said in the essay.