A review by lola425
The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America by Isaac Butler, Dan Kois

4.0

Compelling oral history that highlights just how strongly this play affected the people involved in the various productions of it, the audiences, and the world at large. Its continuing impact cannot be overstated. The structure of the book is excellent: interviews with the actors, directors, and producers broken up with detailed examinations of each of the main characters of the play by the actors who portrayed them. Also, sidebars with acting students, teachers, critics and a timeline that includes key moments in the history of the play and in the political climate for each production. It's an oral history filled with respect and love, but also with heartache. You cannot separate the many, many lives lost to the AIDS epidemic from the force driving the play, and even today its messages resonate (surely more than we ever thought they would).