angels in america
prior: i'm ready for my close-up mr. demille. one wants to move through life with elegance and grace, blossoming infrequently, but with exquisite taste, and perfect timing. like a rare bloom. a zebra orchid. one wants, but one so seldom gets what one wants, does one? no, one does not. one gets fucked...over. one dies at 30, robbed of decades of majesty-- fuck this shit! fuck this shit. i look like a corpse. a corpsette. oh, my queen. you know you've hit rock-bottom when even drag is a drag.
harper: are...who are you?
prior: who are you?
harper: what are you doing in my hallucination?
prior: i'm not in you're hallucination, you're in my dream.
harper: you're wearing make-up.
prior: so are you.
harper: but you're a man!
prior: ahh! my hands and feet give it away.
harper: there must be some mistake here. i don't recognize you. are you my...some sort of imaginary friend?
prior: no! aren't you too old to have imaginary friends?
harper: i have emotional problems. i took too many pills. why are you wearing make-up?
prior: i was in the process of applying the face trying to make myself feel better. i swiped the new fall colours at the clinique counter at macy's.
harper: you stole these?
prior: i was out of cash. it was an emotional emergency.
harper: joe will be so angry. i promised him no more pills.
prior: these pills you keep alluding to--
harper: valium. i take valium, lots of valium.
prior: and you're dancing as fast as you can.
harper: i'm not addicted. i dont believe in addiction, and i nev-- well, i never drink and i never take drugs.
prior: well, smell you, nancy drew!
harper: except valium...
prior: except valium in wee fistfulls.
harper: it's terrible, mormons are not supposed to be addicted to anything. i'm a mormon.
prior: i'm a homosexual.
harper: oh. in my church we don't believe in homosexuals.
prior: in my church we don't believe in mormons.
harper: what church do-- oh i get it. i don't understand this. if i didn't ever see you before and...i don't think i did, then i don't think you should be here in this hallucination. because...in my experience, the mind - which is where hallucinations come from, shouldn't be able to make up anything that wasn't there to start with. it didn't enter it from experience from the real world. imagination can't create anything new, can it? it only recycles bits and pieces from the world and reassembles them into visions. am i making sense right now?
prior: given the circumstances, yes.
harper: so when we think we've escaped the unbearable ordinariness and, well, untruthfullness of our lives, it's really only the same old ordinariness and falseness rearranged into the appearance of novelty and truth. nothing unknown is knowable. don't you think it's depressing?
prior: the limitations of the imagination?
harper: yes.
prior: it's something you learn after your second theme party - it's all been done before.
harper: the world, finite. terribly, terribly...well, this is the most depressing hallucination i ever had.
prior: apologies, i do try to be amusing.
harper: oh, well don't apologize. you've...i can't expect someone who's really sick to entertain me.
prior: how on earth did you know?
harper: oh, that happens. this is the very threshold of revelation sometimes. you can see things. how sick you are. do you see anything about me?
prior: yes.
harper: what?
prior: you are amazingly unhappy.
harper: oh, big deal. you meet a valium addict and figure out she's unhappy? that doesn't count, of course. something else...something surprising?
prior: something surprising?
harper: yes.
prior: your husband's a homo.
harper: oh, ridiculous! really?
prior: threshold of revelation.
harper: well, i don't like your revelations. i don't think you intuit well at all. joe's a very normal man. oh god. oh god. do homos take, like, lots of long walks?
prior: yes, we do. in stretch pants with lavender coifs. i just looked at you and there was--
harper: a sort of blue streak of recognition--
prior: yes!
harper: like you knew me incredibly well.
prior: yes.
harper: yes. i have to go now, get back. something just...fell apart. oh god. i feel so sad.
prior: i know. i'm sorry. i usually say, "fuck the truth," but mostly the truth fucks you.
harper: i see something else about you.
prior: oh?
harper: deep inside you, there's a part of you, the most inner part entirely free of disease. i can see that.
prior: is that...that isn't true.
harper: threshold of revelation.
prior: people come and go so strangely here! i don't think there's any uninfected part of me. my heart is pumping polluted blood. i feel dirty.