The Undergraduate Theatre Society’s latest play title is quite a mouthful. True to its name, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes offers an uninhibited take on homosexuality that incorporates fantasy and reality.

The three story lines of the play duly reflect the versatility of its subject matter. The play features a gay couple, a Mormon couple and a pair of lawyers, ample material for its exploration of sex, politics, religion and race.

Despite this potpourri of themes, the play operates with a fluidity that makes the three-hour epic seem brief. The stage is divvied up into three sections, allowing for rapid transitions and a dynamic tableau when the scenes climax simultaneously.

The main action of the performance revolves around the relationship that develops between Prior and Louis. When the former reveals he has AIDS, his partner is riddled with guilt as he struggles to cope with his abhorrence of disease and the degeneration that necessarily accompanies it.

Meanwhile, Roy, a profane lawyer, upon discovering he, too, has AIDS, denies that he’s a homosexual, much to the consternation of his doctor, insisting that he has liver cancer instead. After all, he’s a Republican in the Reagan era, and coming out of the closet would certainly cause a scandal. Who he is, he declares, should not be defined by his sexuality, but by how many favors people owe him.

Back at the office, Roy tries to convince his Mormon colleague, Joe, to transfer to D.C., where he would be furnished with a job in the Justice Department. This move is particularly convenient at a time when Roy is being accused of fraud.

At home, Joe’s wife, Harper, is crumpled on the ground listening to a description of oral sex on the radio and soliloquizing about the holes in the ozone layer corresponding to the vacancies in her own life. She is visited by a number of specters, including Mr. Lies, a travel agent, who offers an escape from the daunting realities of a dysfunctional family.

The tales intertwine near the urinals of a men’s bathroom. Joe offers the weepy Louis some toilet paper. The latter reciprocates by venting about his sick friend.

The bathroom dissolves into a vanity, and Prior assumes the air of a drag queen, daubing his face with makeup. The first in a number of quirky twists occur when Harper materializes from a refrigerator, a peculiar porthole between worlds. The two share “thresholds of revelation.”

Later, Prior has another visitor, this time of a celestial nature that hints of his imminent role as a messenger.

The succeeding scenes include an excursion to the hospital, an intimate scene of Brokeback proportions, more apparitions and a spontaneous jaunt to Antarctica with Mr. Lies.

The impulse to expose all the complexities of homosexuality was a good one, and the UW student cast does an excellent job bringing it to life. But be warned: The exposure is quite literal, including full frontal nudity.

The final scene is meant to astound and mystify, but it offers little closure so as to anticipate a sequel.