Angels in America — which tackles the onset of AIDS in the Reagan era, journeys from Antarctica to Brooklyn to heaven, and pinballs between fantasy and reality — is too epic to be confined to a single play. Yet Tony Kushner's Millennium Approaches and Perestroika (which earned a Pulitzer in 1993, back-to-back Best Play Tony awards, and virtual canonization) are being revived in, improbably enough, Off Broadway's 160-seat Signature Theatre. (Kushner is married to EW columnist Mark Harris.) Remarkably, Angels loses none of its grandeur in director Michael Greif's revival. And the seven-hour production's quieter moments — the dream/hallucinations of Valium addict Harper (Zoe Kazan) and quipping-in-the-face-of-death Prior (Christian Borle, who could afford to dial it down a notch); the electric first kisses between married Mormon attorney Joe (Bill Heck) and incurable narcissist Louis (Star Trek's Zachary Quinto, in a stunning New York stage debut); Ethel Rosenberg's ghost (Robin Bartlett) saying Kaddish for Roy Cohn (Frank Wood) — shimmer with newfound intimacy and unspeakable beauty. A-
(Tickets: SignatureTheatre.org or 212-244-7529)
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