The messier, more action-packed second half of Tony Kushner’s epic now arrives with a whole panelof angels, talking Mormon statues, even worse sickness, and death. “Are we doomed?” asks Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the World’s Oldest Bolshevik (Anne Allgood) in the opening scene. Yes, things have gone from bad to dire, but that’s a good thing for this production, especially its younger cast members.

Part I’s rather unconvincing flirtation between runaway lover Louis (Quinn Franzen) and closeted Mormon Republican Joe (Ty Boice) has morphed into a full-blown affair, with substantial sexual heat and nudity. Likewise, the AIDS-afflicted Prior gains depth from Adam Standley, who awkwardly stepped in and out of his illness in Millennium Approaches. And the unraveling housewife Harper—abandoned by Joe—finally finds a hard, defiant voice in Alex Highsmith’s performance. The intensity of Perestroika benefits them all; as stakes rise and their characters fall, these performers meet the challenge.

Similarly, the comedy of Part I (still ongoing), slightly off-key at times, shifts into a darker, more bitter brand of humor. Charles Leggett’s even more masterful Roy Cohn drops fewer jokes and shows more pain, yet without losing his Reaganite clarity. Leggett brings an almost-human edge to this vile man, particularly in the scene where Cohn blesses Joe and learns that his protege is gay, too. If not sadness exactly, there’s an ever-so-slight bewilderment, a hope lost. As Belize, nurse and friend to Prior, Timothy McCuen Piggee continues to hit just the right blend of fast-talking queen and world-weary gravitas. (Quibbles? Sure—I prefer Meryl Streep’s creepy ghost of Ethel Rosenberg in the HBO adaptation to Allgood’s no-nonsense, quotidian specter; though I do love the latter’s wry Mormon mother.)

Getting a twitchy viewer like me to sit through such a long show, and raptly, is a feat. The tight acting propels the plot forward, with each scene building momentum, so that even Kushner’s metaphysical-intellectual passages are entertaining (thanks also to Marya Sea Kaminski’s well-played Angel). Credit ultimately belongs to director Andrew Russell for this fast-paced, well-oiled production. Otherwise, the four-hour Perestroika could’ve felt like a millennium. Cornish Playhouse, 201 Mercer St. (Seattle Center), 441-7178. $25 and up. See intiman.org for complete schedule. Ends Sept. 21.

nsprinkle@seattleweekly.com