Angels in America Lesson Plan

What do you think the relationship is at the beginning of the play between Roy Cohn and Joe Pitt? Why has Joe come to meet with him? What does this tell us about each character?

It is unclear how Roy and Joe know each other previously, but Joe is a conservative lawyer as is Roy. Roy wants to help Joe get a senior job at the Justice Department and Roy can easily use his high-level political connections to help do this for Joe. However, Roy is clear that he will expect Joe’s loyalty in return and will call in this favor down the road. We can tell those both by Roy’s line “And it would mean something to me. You understand?” and also by the way we see Roy operating in this...