All you have to say is “Angels in America,” and I’m there. Thankfully, When Last We Flew, Harrison David Rivers’ riff on Kushner’s great epic delivers in pulling the heartstrings of people who feel the same way. Not to mention that it’s a perfectly timed precursor to the highly anticipated New York revival that begins performances in just a few weeks.
Paul, a gay public high school student in Kansas, locks himself in his bathroom to hide from the everyday; stress at school, stress with his family, and a stifled but burgeoning relationship with a boy at school. He finds solace in his copy of Millennium Approaches, Part One Angels in America. He dreams of not just acting in the play, but of the play intersecting with his life – a cover for his longing to live his life “honestly,” free of fear and the need to hide.
A literary, literate play for those of us who know what it’s like to be in love with Kushner’s work, When Last We Flew takes those themes that have made it so beloved, and brings them into a world where the characters find in them hope, love, safety and self-discovery. And the audience roots for them, too; you can tell who shares knowing what it’s like to be touched by that play from the moments of collective, palpable satisfaction at the sometimes funny, but always affectionate, references. (One of the sweetest moments comes early in the play, when Paul’s love interest, Ian, mocks him for his affection for something that’s not on the mandated reading list. “Haven’t you read that like a hundred times?” he asks; “So?” responds Paul. Many of us, I promise, have been there.)
All is normal in the lives of Paul, Ian, and Natalie, a newly rebellious former good-girl, enraged by her school’s declaration that in order to spread out ethno-centric holidays, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will be moved to September; teenagers struggle through high school, parents misunderstand, but desperately long to connect with their children – until strange things start happening. Moments from Angels begin sprinkling themselves into real life: an angel-like character reaches out to Paul’s mother, a girl who tries to fly crashes through a roof, feathers appear in odd places. But has the Kushnerian world come to life, or is a teenager simply engaging with an overactive imagination?
The language is often beautiful and perceptive, the writing is strong; Colette Roberts’ direction 
handles often perverse topics with a gentle humor, and weaves the play’s many complex emotional waves together quite nicely. But the play needs more clarity. Rivers does a good job of making it so you don’t have to have read Angels a hundred times to engage with his play, but it’s often unclear just how much you are supposed to draw the parallels in Paul’s life once things turn fantastical. There are moments that could be taken as something, or nothing – and that may well depend on one’s familiarity with the play. For instance, there are moments where Paul seems quite like Prior, even delivers lines like he might, but it’s hard to tell where the intention is. Both writer and director need to be clearer about what’s real and what’s a dream, or simply about deliberately leaving that up to the audience. However, the parallels often work quite well, perhaps with the exception of throwing around the “threshold of revelation” reference a bit too easily.
Uniformly well-acted, unique, and touching, When Last We Flew definitely grabs a spot as one of my favorite Fringe shows in my years of attendance. Its inventive use of a great dramatic work is probably its biggest asset, but that’s meant to say a lot. It’s brave to wrestle with Kushner, and Rivers handles it with care and creativity. I wish this play a bright future.
