The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America

by Isaac Butler, Dan Kois

The oral history of Angels in America , as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving account of the AIDS era, essential queer history, and pure "theater magic" (NPR).

A STONEWALL BOOK AWARDS HONOR BOOK

When Tony Kushner's Angels in America hit Broadway in 1993, it won the Pulitzer Prize, swept the Tonys, launched a score of major careers, and changed the way gay lives were represented in popular culture. Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Mary-Louise Parker was itself a tour de force, winning Golden Globes and eleven Emmys, and introducing the play to an even wider public. This generation-defining classic continues to shock, move, and inspire viewers worldwide.

Now, on the 25th anniversary of that Broadway premiere, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois offer the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way through oral history, the vibrant conversation and debate of actors (including Streep, Parker, Nathan Lane, and Jeffrey Wright), directors, producers, crew, and Kushner himself. Their intimate storytelling reveals the on- and offstage turmoil of the play's birth--a hard-won miracle beset by artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan '80s.

Expanded from a popular Slate cover story and built from nearly 250 interviews, The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art of the past century, from its gritty San Francisco premiere to its starry, much-anticipated Broadway revival in 2018.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, LGBT, Theatre, Queer, Plays, Drama

464 pages, Paperback

First published February 13, 2018

About the author

Isaac Butler is the author of the NBCC Award winner The Method and the coauthor of The World Only Spins Forward. Butler’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, New York magazine, Slate, American Theatre, and more. For Slate, he created and hosted Lend Me Your Ears, a podcast about Shakespeare and politics, and Working, a podcast about the creative process. He is the co-creator of Real Enemies, a multimedia exploration of conspiracy theories in the American psyche. Butler holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Minnesota and teaches theater history and performance at the New School, NYU, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, rounded up. Considering I read this over 400 page book in less than 24 hours, it would be disingenuous of me to give it anything less than 5 stars. There are definite problems with both the book AND its subject, but structuring over 250 oral interviews into a consistently informative and entertaining format is a daunting task at which the authors largely succeed.

Having taught the first part of the play during an LGBT theatre course at USF nearly twenty years ago - and knowing a few of the principals quoted - made me appreciate the long and complicated history of the play even more, and I am glad that the prickliness of Kushner was not glossed over (having come under his wrath myself once for asking him an indelicate question at a theatre conference). I only wish I had re-read the play, or at least seen the HBO or NT films of it prior to reading this... it would have made some sections much clearer, but mea culpa.

[Harry McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got through >400 pages in 26ish hours, so this gets 5 stars.

The World Only Spins Forward is an oral history of the context, inception, premiere, and legacy of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, with the contributions of many people who have been involved with and touched by this play, from the 1980s to the present day. A lot of the history of the play has previously been accessible, so where this book really excels is in the other stories, the actors who were left behind in the workshops, the legal wranglings and so on.

In between the history, there are character interludes; actors talking about the characters in the play, the demands of playing them, the joys and the difficulties. They're wonderful to read.

Reading this book genuinely helps to articulate why Angels in America means so much to me - simply because you can see how much it means to many other people.

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oral history of the creation, production(s), and reception of Angels in America, my candidate for the greatest play ever written. Loved the insights into the creative process, Kushner's messy genius, the political themes of the play, and dozens of choice nuggets I'd never known or somehow forgotten (the first London production starring Jason Isaacs and Daniel Craig as Louis and Joe!). I gobbled this down.

Now I want to watch the miniseries again. Goofy, as I just rewatched it!

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

EUSTIS: Angels feels so fresh, twenty-five years after its initial production, because America is still in the life-and-death struggle of figuring out who we are. Will we live in a country that Roy Cohn created, or will we live in the paradise that Belize imagines at Roy’s deathbed? Will we choose selfishness and fear and greed, or solidarity and inclusion and love? It is either the end of the world or the beginning.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A total dream for a theater geek like me. I loved the format of oral history and hearing so much about an icon play over 30+ years. If you love theater craft and history this book is all that and more. It went on long sometimes and often lacked context...which is also the nature of the beast.

[CarolineFromConcord · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors of this history of "Angels in America" (a seven-hour play now 25 years old) and the world from which it grew interviewed scores of people and organized their often powerful words in script form. It was challenging to keep track of who the speakers were, and I kept flipping back to see the mini identifications that appear in each chapter. Was that speaker the Angel in San Francisco in 1995 or Joe in London in 2017? And I wondered if a reader who had never seen the play could follow what was being discussed, as knowledge of the plot seems a prerequisite. Recent knowledge of the plot would be even better.

But there is no denying that this record is an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of America, the AIDS crisis, the history of the the gay rights movement, and the politics of both the Reagan years and the current dark time. But perhaps the book's greatest achievement is to give vibrant life to just what this play meant to people who were dying or losing loved ones to a terrifying plague. It's a moving book.

I found it interesting that the best lines did not come from celebrities who were involved in the various productions or touched by them (people like former Congressman Barney Frank, playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, or actors Nathan Lane and Meryl Streep) but from less known actors, stagehands, costume and lighting designers who were deeply touched by all they witnessed. The small details spoke more loudly than the sweeping generalizations about the play's place in history. One interviewee witnessed members of the audience at one performance softly accompanying the words of the Kaddish (Jewish death rites) spoken by an actor who was saying them for a character so evil as to seem beyond empathy but one whose final suffering revealed his humanity.

Playwright Tony Kushner is no doubt a genius, but one almost feels that he was channeling inspiration from a higher source like the writers of the Bible. Toward the middle of the book, the hurt he caused people because he "had to protect the play" made me modify my admiration. And it was interesting that having been an obsessive control freak about the details of every production for many years, he suddenly changes his mind about essentials when a loosely overseen version takes a new tack. He's fine with an opera that just uses vignettes. He loves that the Angel in a Netherlands production doesn't fly. What? Former Angels that were traumatized by accidents didn't need to have suffered? Huh. Then again, having an array of interviewees shows that different people had different reactions to their roles. There were Angels who totally loved the clumsy flying.

The show is now back on Broadway with Nathan Lane.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are reading, working on a production, or planning to see "Angels in America" this book will be helpful. I did gain some insight into some of the themes and the structure of the plays. But the structure of the BOOK was a bit chaotic. It was like being in a large room with a bunch of people all talking at the same time about the plays.

Just my two cents.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is an absolutely essential aid to reading the play. On a personal note (I live in the area, and was doing theatre at the time), it also included a section about the notorious Charlotte Rep production in the mid-90s. People interviewed include Perry Tannenbaum, longtime drama critic for Creative Loafing, Steve Umberger, who directed the play and Keith Martin, the managing director of the Rep. Tannenbaum and Umberger are interesting (Tannenbaum has an insider's knowledge of Charlotte politics, both cultural and civic). Martin is . . . well, occasionally not quite accurate in terms of what the production was trying to do. But the interviews with the dozens of people who midwifed the play's birth were fascinating. Butler pays surprisingly little attention to the HBO Mike Nichols film, concentrating instead upon the San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and London stagings. Riveting, whether you are interested in the play as literature or theatre.

Highly recommend.

[Del · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please for the love of God stop comparing this play to Hamilton

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oral histories are eminently bingeable. Like binge-until-you're-queasyworthy. But most of the oral histories I've read have been about subjects like Saturday Night Live, full of gossip and anecdots about a subject I know a lot about.

Angels in America, on the other hand, I'm only superficially familiar with, and this book makes me almost ashamed I haven't seen it every chance I could. Butler and Kois do a masterful job in telling the complicated, inspiring story of a complicated, inspiring work of art. And it's so much more than anecdotes — it's the actors, directors, and the playwright himself dissecting each character and each moment, offering a critical review more profound than any Norton Critical Edition could ever be.

It left me wanting to create more art, to have great ambitions and not worry about whether they're perfectly realized.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book, it works as an oral history of the playwright and the gay community as they respond to the Aids epidemic through creating art and also as a study guide to both the text of Angels in America but also the writing process and the staging (especially the staging!). It's wonderfully readable, entertaining and fascinating about the artistic process of the play's inception and it's numerous various productions from the minimalist show in Amsterdam to the glamour of Broadway. The social history helps the themes of the play come alive and the reflection on the different timings of the various productions shows how timeless the play is. This book is a fantastic companion to the play itself and essential for anyone involved in a production of Angels in America.

[Fredrik deBoer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oral histories can be good places for writers to hide; it's always someone else's voice. So you have to be really, really good at shaping, pruning, structuring. The subject matter here is great, and the authors have provoked a lot of good observations from the interviewees. But there's just way too much here that's shapeless and overstuffed. It's got that quality of simultaneously being too long and yet feeling incomplete. I enjoyed it altogether because I find the play fascinating and really enjoy a lot of the nuggets unearthed here, but the form is a little lacking.

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are very few theatrical productions that both recount the change of history and make that recount a change in itself. "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" by Tony Kushner is one such production. Appearing in the mid-1980's and continuing to this day, Kushner's play(s) give the AIDS epidemic a "face" by showing different bits of society who were affected by disease. By having a cast which included such characters as Roy Cohn and Ethel Rosenberg being surrounded by unknown people who carry the play's plot (to the extent there is a plot.) I never saw the plays at theaters but did see the wonderful HBO production in 2003 and read Tony Kushner's revised edition of the play, published in 2014.

Isaac Butler's new book, "The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America" is the story, basically, of the play's productions going forward from 1985. He interviews many of the cast members, production people, and those involved in the writing, direction, and finances of the play. The author, of course, is Tony Kushner, whose almost feverish writing and rewriting of the play was continuous over the first few years. Kushner combined the politics of AIDS with the personal of gay identity. He includes religious identity; several of the main characters were Mormon. (Hhhm, I wonder if the idea of "The Book of Mormon" came in part from "Angels"?)

"Angels in America" was produced on stages from London to Los Angeles and played for many years in New York. The play began in San Francisco, produced at the Eureka Theater, a small local theater. Oskar Eustis was the producer and he and Kushner worked together with their actors and stage crews to put on the first production. But the play, as Kushner kept writing, was so long that it was eventually broken up into two plays. Who had the stamina to star in two plays? The mostly young cast who entertained the rapturous audiences who had the stamina to sit for hours! From San Francisco, the play headed to Los Angeles, and then on into the wider world.

Bishop's book is written in chapters which are short interviews with various cast and crew. I really don't care for this form of non-fiction, but the subject was so well covered that the writing style didn't bother me. I mention this only because some readers don't like this style.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The World Only Spins Forward is brilliantly structured, walking through the creation and chronologizing the production history of Angels in America, and spliced through with interludes which dive deep on each of the characters in the cast. The oral history style means that the book is made up entirely of quotes from the over 200 people who were interviewed in the course of creating this narrative. Oftentimes the writing flows as if all the quoted individuals are in a room together having a big conversation and relating their story together, although from what I understand the interviews were mostly if not entirely one on one. I can’t even imagine how much work went into parsing out from hundreds of interviews a single coherent arc made up of the thoughts of so many disparate individuals. It is really quite impressive. ⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Personally, I found I didn’t always maintain a great sense of who was talking. The quoted speakers are introduced with their full name and association with the play, but in subsequent quotes are introduced with only their last name. I generally immediately forgot who someone was unless they were a very important often repeated figure, which is not the fault of the writers. One thing I didn’t like was a number of times a shorter segment was inserted that ran along the bottom of many pages, I wish those had been after the chapters in which they appeared instead of requiring the reader to choose when to skip down and skip back up to read the side by side narratives. Those sections were some of my favorites however, touching on themes such as how Angels in America was part of people’s coming out processes, production history in schools, and how the play shaped the next generation of writers and directors. I was also a huge fan of the interlude sections which went in depth on each of the characters and featured discussions from most or all of the actors who played that part throughout its production history. Like Angels itself, this book is sometimes hilarious and sometimes heartbreaking, a gorgeous piece of work I'm so glad to have experienced.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An oral history of Tony Kushner’s masterpiece, this book is a gift for “Angels” superfans. The stories that emerge are fascinating and nuanced as the editors interviewed cast and crew members, theater critics, professors and contemporaries. Kushner comes off as a hapless micromanger, endlessly rewriting the script, terrorizing with tons of production notes. All is forgiven it would seem. The chapters organize around single characters or themes with directors and actors praising the language, bemoaning production difficulties, wistfully meditating on this mountaintop of their careers. The description of the various productions—from high-tech to minimalist—are great and gossipy. Lots of fun facts about casting, contract disputes, and touching stories of grateful audiences. While there are meaningful accounts of gay struggles and national politics in the 80s—and comments on villain Roy Cohn’s protégé, Trump—I wish there was more on his incorporation of religion and dialectical philosophy.

[Abigail Van Alyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since I'm a character in the story of the hard birth and subsequent wild but not always fun ride of Angels in America, it's hard to be objective. I can only comment on the form, a stream of interviews along the play's thirty-year timeline. This choice allows for all the voices to be heard, for all to feel validated who contributed, struggled and suffered along the road to triumph. Many thanks to Isaac Butler for his vision, compassionate listening, and determination.

[Tom Metz · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thrill to be gifted with a book of backstage stories about the greatest play ever written, stories reported by the principals themselves. It's actually more than just backstage stories, it's also thoughtful analysis by people like Frank Rich and Tony Kushner himself, and Tony Taccone and Oskar Eustis, about what the play meant to American audiences at the time of its premiere, how it was developed, what it was like to survive the grueling and chaotic artistic process, how it affected those involved, and what its legacy may be. A wonderful book. Not a book of scholarship, each chapter is a multicharacter oral history loosely organized around broad thematic outlines, it's compelling for its presumed audience of intelligent, appreciative, and literate theater lovers. But I hope somebody somewhere is keeping the original audio files, labeled and timestamped and unedited, for a scholarly book to follow.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling oral history that highlights just how strongly this play affected the people involved in the various productions of it, the audiences, and the world at large. Its continuing impact cannot be overstated. The structure of the book is excellent: interviews with the actors, directors, and producers broken up with detailed examinations of each of the main characters of the play by the actors who portrayed them. Also, sidebars with acting students, teachers, critics and a timeline that includes key moments in the history of the play and in the political climate for each production. It's an oral history filled with respect and love, but also with heartache. You cannot separate the many, many lives lost to the AIDS epidemic from the force driving the play, and even today its messages resonate (surely more than we ever thought they would).

[Breanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

More 3.5/5 ⭐

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. I've never read an oral history before so I had to get use to a story being told solely through dialogue. I think it was really well done, though. Anyone could read this an enjoy it but I wouldn't read it without having some knowledge of the plot of the play (having seen it or read it first).

I think someone who has a stronger connection to the play or is more interested in theatre would have enjoyed this even more. I read this because it was a The Stackspod pick and I actually watched the HBO movie of Angels in America for the first time before I read it.

[isabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

felt reminiscent of the first class i truly loved at nyu so i reread my teachers book about one of the greatest plays ever written. i love tony kushner & going deep into angels in america is just amazing. i hope isaac butler knows what an impact he made on me my sophomore year, even if i was the most forgettable quiet kid in that class (and the only non-tisch student i think). great read, great interviews, so incredibly insightful. angels in america, i will probably be rereading you again very soon.

[Becky Loader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Butler spent an exhaustive amount of time interviewing people who were involved in getting "Angels in America" onto the stage. Unfortunately, he used a very choppy style which lists the person first (and try to keep all those people straight--even if he does identify who they are when they first are mentioned) and then their answers as the delivery for the entire book.

Great subject, mediocre presentation.

[Rachel]

The oral style took me a while to get used to; it was difficult to recall who was who. But after getting over this learning curve the book moved quickly. I highly recommend watching the play or HBO series as a refresher before reading. I appreciated the detail with which all interviewees remembered the most specific of experiences, set pieces, costume choices, lighting design, and acting decisions made from production to production. Learning about not only the historical context around the conception of the play, but also the landscape of theater as an artform in the 80s and 90s, was extremely satisfying and helped me appreciate Angels in America even more.

[Tim Pinckney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I flew through this book. For anyone who is interested in theatre and the creative process - writing, directing, acting - it's all here in a riveting oral history. It's something I'm sure I'll come back to again.

[elle vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

it only took me six months, but i finally finished this!! i promise, i really enjoyed reading this, despite the length of time it took me. this is perfect for any fans of angels in america that want to analyze the characters, different productions, and the cultural impact of the show!

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

As grand an undertaking as the play that it’s about. I found the stories of the early genesis of the play so compelling and the first half really flew. My one complaint is the structure of the sidebars that span multiple pages and interrupt the narrative but I love the character interludes.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant, sprawling, entertaining oral history of a brilliant, sprawling, entertaining play phenomenon. And I say this not just because I’m quoted in it.

[Alyssa Lentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I enjoyed this SO MUCH. It really opened up elements of the play for me that I didn't fully understand before and communicated how much of an impact it had. I loved the oral history format and I think it really benefitted from the different perspectives throughout. I also thought it was structured in a really smart way and covered pretty much everything you could want to know--from more behind-the-scenes details about the writing process, staging, touring, etc., to in-depth analysis on the characters and cultural impact. I sped through reading this because I couldn't put it down.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book of the year, and it was a great one. It was so fascinating to read about the birth and ascent of my all-time favorite play.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the wide range of voices and themes in this oral history, a beautiful and moving tribute to the greatest American play of all time. It’s impossible for me to be objective about something I love so much, but this is a fascinating dive into the complexities of the play’s evolution.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sweeping portrait, impeccably assembled and endlessly moving & inspiring.