Next in my Daily Book Excerpt:
Next play on the script shelf is Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika
The following scene is between Joe (the closeted married Mormon dude) and Louis (I love Louis, he’s a great character). Joe has left his wife Harper, or … I think she left him, actually. And Joe has started to date Louis. It is his first gay relationship, first gay experience. Louis has his own demons to deal with. He had been in a long-term relationship with a guy named Prior (who pretty much is the lead character in this play – an awesome character) – who is dying of AIDS. Louis, in a moment of cowardice, decided he just could not stick around and watch his boyfriend die – so he abandoned him. A weak weak moment. And now Louis is with Mormon Joe.
EXCERPT FROM Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika
(Joe and Louis sitting shoulder to shoulder in the dunes at Jones Beach, facing the ocean. It’s cold. The sound of waves and gulls and distant Belt Parkway traffic. New York Romantic. Joe is very cold, Louis as always is oblivious to the weather.)
JOE. Louis …?
LOUIS. The winter Atlantic. Wow, huh?
JOE. Ferocious. It’s freezing, what are we …
LOUIS. There used to be guys in the dunes even when it snowed. Nothing deterred us from the task at hand.
JOE. Which was?
LOUIS. Exploration. Across an unmapped terrain. The body of the homosexual human male. Here, or the Ramble, or the scrub pines on Fire Island, or the St. Mark’s Baths. Hardy pioneers. Like your ancestors.
JOE. Not exactly.
LOUIS. And many have perished on the trail. I fucked around a whole lot more than he did. So why is he the sick one? No justice. Anyway I wanted you to see this.
JOE. Why?
LOUIS. No reason.
(Little pause)
JOE. I love you.
LOUIS. No you don’t.
JOE. Yes I do.
LOUIS. NO YOU DON’T. You think you do but that’s just the gay virgin thing, that’s …
JOE. (tousling Louis’ hair) Stop working so hard. Listen to the ocean. I love it when you can get to places and see what it used to be. The whole country was like this once. A paradise.
LOUIS. Ruined now.
JOE. It’s a great country. Best place on earth. Best place to be.
LOUIS. I can’t believe you’re a Mormon. You never told me.
JOE. You never asked.
LOUIS. You said you were a Protestant.
JOE. I am. Sort of.
LOUIS. So what else haven’t you told me? So the fruity underwear you wear, that’s …
JOE. A temple garment.
LOUIS. Oh my god. What’s it for?
JOE. Protection. A second skin. I can stop wearing it if you …
LOUIS. How can you stop wearing it if it’s a skin? Your past, your beliefs, your …
JOE. I’m not your enemy, Louis. I do … I am in love with you. You and I, fundamentally, we’re the same. We both want the same things.
LOUIS. I want to see Prior again.
(Joe stands up, moves away)
LOUIS. I miss him, I …
JOE. You want to go back to …
LOUIS. I just … Need to see him again. (Little pause) Don’t you … You must want to see your wife.
JOE. I do see her. All the time. (Pointing to his head) In here. I miss her, I feel bad for her, I … I’m afraid of her.
LOUIS. Yes.
JOE. And I want more to be with …
LOUIS. I have to. See him. It’s like a bubble rising up through rock, it’s taken time, I don’t know, the month in bed and the … Love is still what I don’t get, it … never seems to fit into any of the schematics, wherever I’m going and whatever I’ve prepared for i always seem to have forgotten about love. I only know … It’s an unsafe thing. To talk about love, Joe. Please don’t look so sad. I just. I have to see him again. Do you understand what I …
JOE. You don’t want to see me anymore. Louis. Anything. Whatever you want. I can give up anything. My skin.
(He starts to remove his clothes. Louis, when he realizes what Joe is doing, tries to stop him)
LOUIS. What are you doing, someone will see us, it’s not a nude beach, it’s freezing!
(Joe is half in, half out of his clothes. He has pulled the upper part of his garment off)
JOE. I’m flayed. No past now. I could give up anything. Maybe … in what we’ve been doing, maybe I’m even infected …
LOUIS. No you’re …
JOE. I don’t want to be. I want to live now. And I can be anything I need to be. And I want to be with you.
(Louis starts to dress Joe)
JOE. (As he’s being dressed) You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind always but it’s not always kind to be gentle and soft, there’s a genuine violence softness and weakness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be. You ought to think about that.
LOUIS. I will. Think about it.
JOE. You ought to think about … what you’re doing to me. No, I mean … What you need. Think about what you need. Be brave. And then you’ll come back to me.
(Curtain)
