Big Bird has Snuffleupagus. D.W. has Naydeen (kids show Arthur). Harper has Mr. Lies. In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, we meet Harper, a sweet, innocent, Valium-addicted agoraphobic Mormon. She is married to Joe, a closet homosexual, also Mormon. She knows this and yet has not been able to face the reality. The struggle within their marriage lies not in Harper’s mental illness, and not in their complicated Mormonism, but in Joe’s sexuality.
Mr. Lies, her imaginary friend, is a travel agent. According to the description of his character, he resembles a jazz musician; African-American, suave, cool, deep resounding voice. He wears a large lapel badge emblazoned with “IOTA” (The International Order of Travel Agents). He is, in fact, the ultimate travel agent. Harper needs escape, frequently. She spends her days at home, popping pills, obsessing about knife-wielding men under her bed and the ever-looming ozone layer. All of her day-to-day problems seem to be symbolic of a much larger reality that she is unable to wrap her head around. Mr. Lies serves as her escape hatch.
Act 2, Scene 9 is a climax in the play. Harper and Joe and Louis and Prior are hashing out their respective relationships in split scenes. Joe is on the path to accepting his homosexuality and must convey this to Harper, while convincing himself further in the process. He is faced with the passionate wanting of another man. Harper is in denial, and yet she is not. The reader is never really sure how much she has accepted and how much she is simply putting off to avoid change. What she wants and what she knows blend together to create a chaotic mindset. During this hash session, the realization surfaces that Joe is the man under the bed with the knives. Joe is her biggest fear. Harper needs to escape, immediately. She cries out in desperation to Mr. Lies who appears ready to whisk her away, far away. In the film, Mr. Lies appears from out of the refrigerator in a frozen-over kitchen, complete with parka and ice pick. Harper follows him into the fridge, away from her life.
Mr. Lies has taken her to Antarctica. Harper wants to build a dream city, plant trees, have a relationship with an Eskimo, have a baby. Mr. Lies explains that there are no trees in Antarctica. No Eskimos either. And we all know that Harper was faking her pregnancy. “This is a retreat,” says Mr. Lies, “a vacuum. Its virtue is that it lacks everything; deep freeze for feelings. You can be numb and safe here, that’s what you came for. Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions.” (p102) And then an Eskimo walks towards her. And then she feels the baby kick. Ah, to be delusional with an imaginary friend who can whisk us far away from life's difficulties at a moment’s notice. Or, at the very least, have a really good travel agent. Does it get better than that?
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