Ben Shenkman Weighs in on HBO's
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www.ExpressGayNews.com • December 8, 2003 Q1 Q_COVERstory On Cloud Nine with a Heavenly Film Ben Shenkman Weighs in on HBO’s ‘Angels in America’ By Mary Damiano Arts & Entertainment Editor Ben Shenkman is sitting on the patio overlooking Biscayne Bay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Miami. He is literally between flights—he’s just flown in from New York and is due to get on a plane home in a few hours. He’s in town for the afternoon to talk about the HBO film Angels in America, one of the most ambitious undertakings by the cable network, or by anyone else, for that matter. “The play is an old friend for me,” he says, adjusting his glasses to shield his eyes from the noonday sun. “To have it done on this level is jaw-dropping.” Angels in America is the film adaptation of Tony Kushner’s play, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award a decade ago. The story begins in 1985 and centers on what the stigma of homosexuality and the AIDS epidemic does to two couples. Angels in America examines the social and political impact of AIDS, spirituality, religion and mental illness. Ghosts, dream sequences and hallucinations are the norm. It’s a monumental project, and it succeeds in the most breathtaking way. The star power is impressive. Directed by Mike Nichols, it stars three Oscar winners, Al Pacino, in his television debut, and Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson, who each juggle several roles. Shenkman plays Louis Ironson, a neurotic New York gay Jew who bails when Justin Kirk and Ben Shenkman in Angels in America Photo by Stephen Goldblatt his lover Pryor (Justin Kirk) is diagnosed with AIDS. While on the surface Louis may seem Ben Shenkman on Shenkman says that while there aren’t a the play for some reason, for some purpose, as unsympathetic, Shenkman’s portrayal, Working with the Stars coupled with his big, sad, puppy dog eyes, lot of actual sex scenes in Angels in America, a mission,” Shenkman says. “He suggested Meryl Streep: “She’s an incredible make the audience hurt for Louis almost as sex is in the air and on every character’s mind. we think about our teacher, who did live long woman. She is incredibly smart about much as Pryor. But Shenkman is quick to give He does have a few romantic scenes and enough to see it, which was great.” diffusing the reverence with which the credit Kushner for Louis’s likeability. kissing scenes with his male co-stars Justin While his role in Angels in America could she’s treated by any actor she works “One of the good things about Tony’s Kirk and Patrick Wilson, and notes his live-in serve as a springboard to bigger and better with. She somehow diffuses all that and writing is that he doesn’t manipulate the girlfriend’s reaction to the scenes: “She’s pretty roles, Shenkman is keeping the experience in turns you into an actor in her scene, so audience,” Shenkman says. “He doesn’t have unflappable. When I met my girlfriend, I was in perspective. “I think it will make my face known that it’s the best of both worlds. You’re good characters and bad characters. He speaks a play where I had a romantic scene, so before in a way that only television can,” he says. “I excited to be in her presence, just at through every character, even the ones with she even knew me she saw me kiss other suspect that it will also be temporary, because the fact at working with her, but then opposing politics. I think while Louis isn’t people. With this she’s less jealous,” once it’s off people’s TV screens, I wouldn’t she does something that makes the sympathetic in the traditional way of thinking Shenkman says with a mischievous smile. “But expect people to remember it quite so clearly. It work better.” about stories, I think it’s possible to empathize that Patrick Wilson,” he muses, “he’s got a will probably be something I’m associated with Al Pacino: “There’s one scene with him, even though he acts despicably. He’s rack.” for the rest of my life, because it’s shaping up where he’s dead and I’m praying over also very self-aware, which makes the character Shenkman is old friends with Angels. He to be a memorable piece of the culture. And if his body. I’ll tell you, that Pacino—he’s relatable.” work-shopped the play while he was in college, there’s anything worth giving up a measure of a very convincing corpse. He was very Although Shenkman has done some TV playing Roy Cohn, and then later playing Louis anonymity for, it’s this.” gracious about that, because by the work, most notably on Law and Order and on stage in San Francisco. He recalls that while Angels in America, Part One, “Millennium time they were shooting the angles on Ed, and movies, including Roger Dodger and working on the play at New York University, Approaches,” premiered Sunday, Dec. 7 me, he was out of frame, and no one Requiem for a Dream, he has made a name for one of the teachers got AIDS. Another teacher and will be repeated in one-hour chapters would have minded if he’d gone home, himself on the New York stage. He originated reminded Shenkman and the rest of the cast Dec. 8, 9 and 10 in prime time. Part Two, and I could have done it to a piece of the role of Hal in David Auburn’s play Proof, that Kushner’s work was about something “Perestroika,” airs this Sunday, Dec. 14, tape, but he stayed there all night, to receiving a Tony nomination for “Best much greater than themselves, and that it was at 8 p.m., and will be repeated in one- be dead off-camera for me. That was a Featured Actor in a Play.” His co-star in Proof, written to accomplish something greater than hour chapters Dec. 15, 16 and 17. For really gracious gesture from one actor Mary Louise Parker, also stars in Angels in just to create a piece of theatre. “He said that more information and times, visit www.HBO.com. to another.” America. to tap into that energy, we needed to be doing Q2 www.ExpressGayNews.com • December 8, 2003 Q_THEATERpreview Gay Playwright’s Edgy Farce Comes to GableStage ‘What the Butler Saw’ Makes Miami Premiere By Mary Damiano that deals with mistaken identity and issues Arts & Entertainment Editor of gender and class issues. A British farce involving crossdressing, “There is hardly a sexual innuendo that is rape, shock treatment, assassination and not made during the course of the play,” Adler insanity wouldn’t be the first thing that says. “Most of them are overt, some of them springs to mind when most people think of are subtle. People change clothes, men are the holidays, but Joseph Adler likes to do mistaken for women, women are mistaken for things a little differently. me—it deals with every kind of sexual That’s why Adler, producing artistic permutation that you can conceive of.” director of the GableStage Theatre in Coral The multi-Carbonell Award-winning Gables, is presenting the Miami premiere of director has assembled an impressive cast Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw as the for What the Butler Saw, including John Felix, theatre’s new production. Peter Haig, Sandra Ives, Autumn Horne, “I wanted to do a comedy for the holiday Oscar Cheda and Michael Vines. season, but I didn’t want to do a “In my opinion, this is the funniest farce conventional comedy—I wanted to do a comedy since Oscar Wilde, bar none,” Adler GableStage comedy,” Adler says. “To me, a says. “Nobody has been able to do with this comedy as edgy as Joe Orton’s comedy is, a genre what Joe Orton did. And he was only 34 comedy that is uproarious and has shocked years old when he died. How a man of that age people for many years, is the perfect comedy could have managed to have the stagecraft for us to do.” and the wit and the skill he brought to the While Joe Orton is well known in his table, I have no idea. One can only guess at native England, he is probably best known the result if he’d had more years to do it.” in this country as the subject of the 1987 What the Butler Saw opens Dec. 13 and Stephen Frears’ film Prick Up Your Ears, runs through Jan. 11 at the GableStage starring Gary Oldham as Orton and Alfred Theatre located at the Biltmore Theatre, Molina as Kenneth Halliwell, Orton’s lover 1200 Anastasia Ave. in Coral Gables. of 16 years. In 1967, Halliwell murdered Orton, Tickets are $35. A special New Year’s bashing his head in with a hammer, and then Eve package is available, featuring an committed suicide with a drug overdose. 8:30 performance followed by a Although his body of work is small, it champagne supper at the Biltmore has spawned a word, “Ortonesque,” Hotel. Tickets for New Year’s Eve are meaning something that is both outrageous $100, and proceeds will benefit GableStage Educational Programming. and macabre. What the Butler Saw, which For more information and to purchase was not produced until two years after tickets, call 305.446.1119 or visit Orton’s death, takes place in a British asylum, www.GableStage.org.