- The Normal Heart
When The Normal Heartby Larry Kramer premiered at the Public Theater on 21 April 1985, it almost immediately staked its claim as one of the most significant political plays of the decade. The silence and stigmatization that marked the early AIDS crisis had previously been cracked by a handful of other plays created at community-based gay theatres around the country. But Kramer's passionate tirade of a play reached a wide audience over a long run in New York, followed by productions around the country and the world, sparking outrage and debate and arguably influencing the national conversation around AIDS. In the process, it showed that the mainstream American theatre was still a legitimate venue for political agitation and social change. The Worth Street Theatre's revival of The Normal Heart, under the direction of David Esbjornson and housed at the Public Theater, invites the audience to reconsider the significance of Kramer's play and of the historical moment it dramatizes. In a world where gay politics and the AIDS crisis have undergone tremendous changes over the past two decades, does The Normal Hearthave anything to offer its audience besides a nostalgic look at "the way we lived then"?
The Normal Heartis a pièce à clefthat dramatizes Kramer's own experiences early in the AIDS crisis. Beginning in July 1981, a writer named Ned Weeks embarks on a mission to save the lives of gay men, and to convince others that those lives are worth saving. The play depicts his efforts to establish an organization (much like Gay Men's Health Crisis) to disseminate information and organize medical services. Ned's activism is intertwined with his pursuit of a romantic relationship with Felix, and his struggle for acceptance from his older brother Ben, who thinks of homosexuality as a sickness. Although Ned desperately wants to belong to a gay community, the abrasive way in which he pursues his mission brings about his further alienation, climaxing in his dismissal from his own organization. Ned's anger (and some of Kramer's most compelling writing) is aimed at all those who remain inactive in the face of a health crisis: politicians, medical agencies, the media, apathetic gay people, and heterosexist straight people. His anger is exacerbated by his fear of losing Felix to AIDS, and the second half of the play shows the progression of his lover's illness. The play ends with Felix's death, but also on a note of tentative optimism as Ned is reunited with Ben and affirms his hopes for a healthy, happy future for gay people.
The original production was notable for its set, which consisted of whitewashed walls on which were written continually updated statistics and information about the burgeoning AIDS crisis. This revival replaces the trappings of the agit-prop "living newspaper" with the classical pillars on the thrust stage of the Anspacher Theatre and Eugene Lee's sleek and spare set pieces. One can faintly see the US Constitution on the back scrim. Esbjornson's production has made some alterations and additions to the original text: an ominous prologue of dimly lit figures dancing to the postdisco anthem, "It's Raining Men"; a Kushneresque intercutting of political and medical scenes in act two; and an expanded scene between Ned and his partner in medical activism, Dr. Emma Brookner, in which she recounts her childhood experiences of polio. Esbjornson also creates a growing sense of political and emotional turmoil in act two as he refuses to clean up the debris left by each scene: the papers from Emma's case files and the milk and vegetables that Felix refuses to eat have exploded across the stage, and the people on stage are in danger of slipping and falling into the growing quagmire.
Raúl Esparza plays Ned Weeks with a combination of aggressive fury, comic neuroses, righteous dignity, and sympathetic longing. At times the actor seems to be physically and vocally channeling the playwright's distinctive persona...