ANGELS IN AMERICA: A Gay Fantasia on...

ANGELS IN AMERICA: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika by Tony Kushner (Theatre Communications Group: $10.95; 158 pp., paperback original) and SHARING THE DELIRIUM: Second Generation AIDS Plays and Performances edited by Therese Jones (Heinemen: $16.95; 342 pp., paperback original). The second part of Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play derives much of its extraordinary power from the author’s ability to juxtapose broad comedy with genuine pathos. Nebbishy Prior Walter’s reaction to his encounter with the angel (“I’m exploring my dark side these days, I’m losing myself in some ideological leather bar”) sounds as credible as the Angel’s grim prophecy of “Death more plenteous than all Heaven has tears to mourn it.” The shorter, less polished works in “Delirium” represent workshop efforts by authors who are still learning to approach serious issues without belaboring the audience. The most effective piece in the collection is Doug Holsclaw’s darkly funny “The Baddest of Boys,” set in a San Francisco cafe where the employees keep dropping dead--one waiter has called in dead four times in a single month. There are flashes of inspiration in Tim Miller’s “My Queer Body” and Micheal Kearns’ “Myron, a Fairy Tale in Black and White,” but the authors’ words don’t come alive on the page as Kushner’s do.