And just how much detail does that justify getting into?
>>I could have done with a lot less gay references but since one of the main points is that McCarthy’s right hand man was gay and died of AIDS while persecuting his own kind (meaning gays and Jews) then they gay angle was a key part of it.
Justify? I don’t think the whole play was justified - I suffered through it and then watched the Al Pacino version after it won more awards than roots and still found it not worthwhile. In return my wife cried when I tried to teach her calculus so I was really the loser on that marital exchange...
But strictly from a literature sense, it makes the point that this guy was deep in gay culture and yet working with McCarthy - and its immersive in gay culture the same way Lord of the Rings is immersive in Hobbit culture. So the plays point is probably made more effectively..
I just watched “Keeping up with the Steins” about the competition for extravagant Bar Mitzvahs and a boy who breaks out of that pattern and gets back to the core of his family, culture and religion. It used a similar technique of a thousand small Jewish touches. Now I liked “Keep Up” and I didn’t like Angels but I see both as teachable and neither as censorable.