Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika Act 5, Scene 2 Summary

  • Prior walks through streets of Heaven dressed in full-out prophet robes and carrying the book. Heaven looks like San Francisco just after the 1906 earthquake; it feels kind of deserted.
  • Harper sits on a crate, holding a cat. She says hi to Prior and asks him where they are.
  • Prior tells her they're in Heaven.
  • Prior recognizes the cat – it's his cat Sheba, who disappeared in <em>Part One</em>. He wonders how she died.
  • Harper wonders if she's dead; she took lots of Valium after Joe left. She asks Prior if he died.
  • He says he can go back if he wants to.
  • Harper thinks Heaven is depressing.
  • Prior suggests that they stay in Heaven together.
  • Harper refuses, saying her life is going pretty terribly, but somehow she's never felt more alive. She says that somehow the total devastation that Joe has brought to her life has set her free.
  • Harper seems to be feeling the urge to migrate. She tells Prior she's going home and that he ought to come back, too – Heaven is a dump.
  • Prior notes that it's supposed to look a lot like San Francisco.
  • Harper is not impressed.
  • Prior tells her that the real San Francisco is "unspeakably beautiful" (5.2.23). "Unspeakable beauty. That's something I would like to see," Harper tells him (5.2.23).
  • She vanishes along with Sheba. Prior says goodbye to Sheba.
  • Suddenly the scenery fades away and Prior is standing in the Hall of the Upper Orders. This place looks a whole lot like San Francisco City Hall, except there's a lot of cracked plaster everywhere.
  • The angel stands before him.
  • "Greetings, Prophet. We have been waiting for you," she says (5.2.27).