Tony Kushner’s sprawling seven-hour masterpiece, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, won the Pulitzer Prize when it appeared on Broadway and has been hailed as one of the most significant plays of the Twentieth Century. Yet, it is set at the height of the AIDS epidemic and at the end of the Cold War, and the issues it covers can seem dated. ion Theatre’s straightforward twentieth anniversary production lets the play make its own case, and the results are both powerful and devastating.

Mr. Kushner wears both his heart and his politics on his sleeve, and despite placing the two plays that comprise Angels in America in the mid-1980s it is clear that he has larger, more enduring issues on his mind. These issues are evident from the opening monologues of both Millennium Approaches, which is set at the funeral of a Holocaust survivor whose large family abandoned her in her old age and ill health, and Perestroika, where the World’s Oldest Living Bolshevik (Catalina Maynard) delivers an address at the Russian Hall of Deputies lamenting changes brought about the end of the Cold War and expressing fear at the impending abandonment of Marxism.

Likewise, personal and political abandonment is a major theme of the interlocking stories told in the two plays. Prior Walter (Kyle Sorrell) has AIDS, and his lover, Louis (Jason Maddy), afraid of the prospect of providing so much care to a dying man, abandoned him and then became wracked with guilt. As Prior’s condition worsens, he is cared for instead by Belize (Kevane La’Marr Coleman), a nurse and former lover. Joe Pitt (Jason Heil) works as a clerk for a New York judge and is married to Harper (Jessica John Gerke), who is not happy living in New York and suffers from depression.

Joe has come to the attention of Roy Cohn (Jesse MacKinnon), who gained fame as a staffer to Senator Joseph McCarthy during the days of the Communist witch-hunts. Roy meets Joe with an offer to place him in the Reagan administration Justice Department. Both Joe and Roy are both homosexual and in denial, Joe because of his Mormon faith, Roy because he’s a conservative political “fixer” who would lose his cachet if he were found out. Roy also has AIDS. Joe is afraid that Harper’s condition will worsen if they move to Washington, but Roy encourages Joe to leave Harper in New York and move anyway.

Left alone in his suffering, Prior is visited by ghosts of his ancestors, who foretell him to be a great prophet. Harper, delusional from a Valium addiction, is visited by Mr. Lies (Mr. Coleman), who takes her on fantasy vacation trips. Roy, too is visited by Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed for espionage during the McCarthy era through his efforts. Joe, who has come to terms with being gay, is visited by his mother, Hannah (Ms. Maynard) in an attempt to rescue him. Prior is visited by an Angel (Karson St. John), who delivers formal notification, in spectacular fashion, that he has been selected as a prophet.

Mr. Kushner tells these interlocking stories with passion, humor, irony, and with a gay sensibility that includes being fabulous on a budget. At one moment, you may be wondering why you find Roy Cohn’s relationship with Ethel Rosenberg to be painfully intimate, at the next you may be realizing that this relationship speaks to the kind of worship of American exceptionalism and demonizing of individuals by labeling them “socialist” that has become stronger than ever in recent years. AIDS may not be the death sentence that it was once, but as the recent Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart reminds us, AIDS put prophets in our midst and some of them, like Mr. Kramer, are still with us. So, Angels may be dated, but it now resonates in different ways and is still a must-see.

Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza’s production for ion Theatre wisely focuses on telling the complex story in as straightforward a manner as possible. Using downtown’s Lyceum Space, a fair amount larger than the 49-seat theatre at 6th and Pennsylvania that is the company’s home, the directors are able to mount scenes that sometimes overlap in different stage areas and also to employ the technical resources of the larger theatre to their advantage. They are helped considerably by Karin Filijan’s eerie lighting design and Melanie Chen’s foreboding sound design.

There is not a weak link in the company. Mr. Sorrell’s wiry frame and easily ironic manner make Prior’s wasting and then his transformation to a prophet all the more believable. Mr. MacKinnon excels at portraying Roy Cohn as a schemer, while Mr. Heil and Ms. Gercke admirably struggle with their personal demons and the demon that is their relationship. (Ms. Gercke also does double duty by designing splendidly simple costumes.) Mr. Maddy deftly handles the ironic position of being Mr. Kushner’s political mouthpiece and the object of the playwright’s moral disapproval. Mr. Coleman invests Belize with warmth and sharp-tongued humor. Ms. Maynard shines not only as her principal character, Hannah, but also as each of the monologists who begin the two plays, and most particularly as Ethel Rosenberg. Likewise for Ms. St. John, who not only finds humanity in the other-worldly character of the Angel, but also in the secondary roles she plays.

For audiences, Angels in America is a significant investment: each play runs more than three hours, and if one sees both plays on the same day (which is possible to do on Saturdays and Sundays), it’s a long but exhilarating sit. Performances run only through December 11. Don’t miss your chance to see an outstanding production of a great American play.

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