Plays Angels in America and Colder Than Here: Our Actions and the Influence on the Environment
Anton Chekhov once said: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” This famous phrase makes reference to two basic techniques that writers often use to tell a story. Both techniques have their importance, but the key is to understand their respective strengths and use each of them to see in which story they develop best. According to this narrative technique, we are going to analyze Angels in America by Tony Kushner and Colder Than Here by Laura Wade. Through these works, we will discover how the authors convey the concern for the environment. Furthermore, we will also carefully examine both works to identify how environmental damage affects characters.
From the beginning of Angels in America, we are aware of the continuous references to global warming and the ozone layer. Throughout this work, we see how each of the characters begins to decay and be consumed by their own thoughts and actions. This deterioration also occurs with the ozone layer and the environment. However, the author transmits this concern to us through the characterization of Harper Pitt’s character. This woman suffers numerous hallucinations induced by her addiction to valium. These divergences are essential to knowing more about her.
Harper Pitt represents a remarkably complex and tormented character. Despite being a mentally unstable woman, we perceive how the abusive intake of Valium makes her more lucid and aware of what surrounds her through hallucinations. This character experiences moments of clarity that distance her from the reality to which she is used to living, but which surprisingly brings her closer to a “higher truth.” From this intriguing awakening of consciousness, Harper begins to claim responsibility for their actions since they have a reaction in everything that surrounds them, including nature. Her knowledge about the future of humanity makes her the most conscious character of the play. Unlike the rest of the more rational characters who lack such a state of consciousness and sensitivity that she has. She is aware of the prime purpose of humanity and the consequences of her actions.
Regarding the environment, the figure of the United States is clearly relevant and influential to the character's development. The concern of the country for the environment began increasing from the news broadcasted on the radio. The first news about the progressive deterioration of the ozone layer on Earth was exposed from the view from a satellite. This situation is completely reflected in her first monologue. She expresses her anxiety for her current situation through her obsession with the state of the environment: “When you look at the ozone layer, from outside, from a spaceship … But everywhere, things are collapsing, lies surfacing, systems of defense giving way” On the other hand, we note how the relationship with Mr. Lies also encourages her to comprehend what is happening in the world because of the hole in the ozone layer. We can observe it in the conversation they have about Antarctica.
Simultaneously, the evolution of Harper is hazy. Sometimes this character is more determined and in others, more bewildered. We observe a clear example in the conversation she has with Mr. Lies. During the conversation, we realize how Mr. Lies has to guide her to understand what they are really talking about since she is based on her hallucinations. Her initial purpose is to develop a world in which there are no such problems with the environment and where she can get pregnant. Therefore, Mr. Lies informs her: “This is a retreat, a vacuum, its virtue is that it lacks everything; deep-freeze for feelings.… Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.” We can see how the author introduces this conversation to show us in which state she is.
The frequent references to the hole in the ozone layer are a metaphor for Harper’s personal life. She feels increasingly isolated from her husband and more damaged at the same time by the Valium. Her previous ways of acknowledging reality are fading. Nevertheless, she is increasingly aware of what is happening around her, both with her husband and with the environment. From this moment, she realizes that she has to start surviving the world by herself.
On the other hand, Wade focuses Colder Than Here on the life of Myra, a housewife who has terminal bone cancer. She herself, knowing her destiny, arranges her own funeral. At the same moment, the protagonist has to confront many other problems in her own family. Myra intends to spend more time with them individually to make it easier for them when she is no longer there.
Because of the limited time she possesses, the protagonist focuses on a series of activities to arrange her funeral. This pragmatic process of funeral preparations goes from enjoying a picnic with her daughter at possible burial sites to giving them a funny PowerPoint presentation to explain the wishes to them she considers more relevant. The character of Myra combines a personality both sweet and bitter. She has to confront her situation ethically. We are aware of, by means of staging descriptions, that her challenge is impossible to overcome with passivity. Myra is portrayed as an absolutely determined woman. Therefore, she keeps her whole family occupied to avoid any slight grieving.
The time in which the whole family is talking about which the most efficient option for the funeral of Myra is crucial. We can observe how everyone adopts a more ecological vision. By providing ideas that respect the environment are in tune with the thinking of his mother and wife. Myra wants to be part of nature and through her disease, she wishes not to be separated from the earth, but to become part of it. Therefore, her daughter, Jenna, discards the cremation and considers managing the burial and planting a tree on the top of her. These details are the ones that show us the evolution of all the characters, not just the protagonist. We observe how each of them adapts to Myra’s thoughts.
From the beginning, the mother directs the orchestration of her funeral. We are aware that it is not an ordinary burial but an ecological one. Thereby, Myra insists on decorating and designing her biodegradable cardboard coffin and with a natural print. We can appreciate it in the following line: “I wanted it decorated with the sky and the stars.” She makes obvious her concern for deforestation and environmental pollution through these material objects. Myra’s decision to have a green burial is decisive. Therefore, she decides to take her daughter to the forest where she would like to be buried. Not merely does she uses that picnic as a means to create a bond between them, but also to create it with nature. Finally, her daughters accept responsibility and learn to value everything that their mother is trying to convey to them.
In the same way, Myra tries to comprehend what happens in the lives of her daughters to become more united to them. At the beginning of the play, we distinguish that the relationship between Myra and Jenna is a little uncomfortable when her mother tries to know more about her private life. Nevertheless, at the end of the first part, Jenna remains completely comfortable talking to her mother about her intimate relations. In fact, Jenna dares to ask her sister about her intimate relations to follow her mother’s advice. We can witness it in the following quote: “Mum thinks we should talk about sex more.” This is precisely what Myra intended, to normalize conversations as natural as sex and death.
Through Myra’s actions and the descriptions in the staging that the authors provide make us realize the strong similarity between her illness and the deterioration of the Earth. The staging facilitates understanding and different situations that occur in the story. We can see an example in the description of scene 9. Myra feels more and more connected to it. Her body comes to act as a microcosm that in turn represents the degeneration of the ‘terrestrial body.’ We see how both the protagonist and the Earth are in a process of deconstruction of organic ecologies at the end of the play.
To conclude, Myra and Harper show critical awareness of ecology and nature. Although they achieve this state each one in a hasty manner, either through hallucinations or illness, both connect the degradation that they are suffering both mentally and physically. To reach this conclusion, both Kushner and Wade oblige readers not to be mere spectators. Through the reactions of the characters and the scenarios that show us we can deduce what is really happening. We must question and create relationships between the feelings and sensations of the protagonists to be aware of the true meaning of these works: the raising awareness that our actions have an impact on the ecology of the planet.
