The latest diploma production from the Acting Department of the Kraków AST has become a nationwide highlight of the start of the new season. Michał Borczuch (well-known to the audience of the Boska Komedia / Divine Comedy Festival as he has won many awards here, including the Grand Prix for Wszystko o mojej matce / Everything About my Mother at Łaźnia Nowa) offers his own version of Tony Kushner’s famous play, the same that Krzysztof Warlikowski successfully directed years ago. The plot is set in the 1980s, during the dark era of AIDS, a time already distant or even exotic for today’s young actors. However, what is essential for Michał Borczuch and the performers of the play are the feelings of the characters, as well as the answer to the question which side they are on, and how good and evil collide inside them and in the world. In Anioły w Ameryce / Angels in America, two heroes – the good (Prior Walter) and the bad (Roy M. Cohn) – engage in a battle for control over the world/ Light meets darkness, one trying to supplant the other. The production of Kraków’s AST doesn’t seek to update the play any way it could, and proves to be painfully valid and current. For in Poland of 2023, prejudice and intolerance still prevail. Hence, the public meets the private experiences of young artists.

Performing the entire Anioły w Ameryce / Angels in America would take just under seven hours. Tony Kushner allowed the creative team of the AST production – only for this particular staging – to make cuts in the text. The changes were made without any direct involvement of the author.