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Life Lessons in ‘Normal Heart’
By PATRICK HEALY
IAN SMITH was born and raised in the 1980s in Bangor, Me., a world away
from the young gay men of New York City of that era who were among the
first to die of complications from AIDS. Mr. Smith, 29, is gay himself,
and in Manhattan he has heard stories about some of those men from their
friends and lovers who survived. But nothing prepared him for the shock
he felt recently seeing “The Normal Heart,” the Broadway drama about the early years of AIDS, which won the Tony Award for best play revival this month.
The fear and terror of the gay characters onstage, Mr. Smith said in an
interview outside the theater, was such a sharp contrast to his own
experience, in which friends can be casual about using condoms. His eyes
still wet from tears, he recalled how one friend recently had a scare
and thought he might have contracted H.I.V.
“It was actually kind of frightening, because he was like, ‘Well, at
this point, even if I got infected, it’s not the worst thing in the
world anymore,’ ” Mr. Smith said. “And you see this play and you’re
like, ‘The ’80s seem a long time ago, and yet we’re making the same dumb
mistakes.’ ”
If “The Normal Heart” was the playwright Larry Kramer’s war cry against AIDS and apathy during its original Off Broadway run in 1985,
the revival is more like a heart-tugging lesson about friendship and
love under siege for people who were not alive or aware during that era.
In hopes of sharing a slice of gay history that many teachers and
textbooks do not impart, the producers of “The Normal Heart” have been
sharply discounting tickets to $30 for people under 30 on Thursday
nights, and they are now planning a United States tour of the production
as well as a run in London.
Daryl Roth, the lead producer, said she decided to try to bring “The
Normal Heart” to Broadway during a conversation last fall with the actor
David Hyde Pierce, who had attended a staged reading of the play.
“David brought two young friends,” she said, “and he told me afterward
that the two knew nothing of the history, the legacy of AIDS, the
struggles that people had just 30 years ago.
“People have been lulled into believing that because of AIDS drugs the
pandemic is over, and AIDS is just another chronic illness. The reality
is far different, and here you have a play that doesn’t just bring
reality to life, but, I think, also shows how a small group of people
can make a difference.”
The play, which runs through July 10, centers on Ned Weeks (a stand-in
for Mr. Kramer) and his attempts to rally other gay men and the New York
City government to take action against AIDS. Among the many divisive
arguments in the work is that gay men should stop having sex — or at
least stop being sexually promiscuous — until the disease is isolated,
and that gay identity is destructively wrapped up in sexual activity and
narcissism rather than in self-acceptance and platonic fellowship with
other gay people.
“My hope, then and now, is that people would go away believing that
being gay is much, much more than what’s between our legs,” Mr. Kramer
said.
Patrick Sullivan, a 21-year-old gay student at Cooper Union who also
bought one of the “30 Under 30” tickets, said these debates over gay
identity were the most provocative parts of the play for him.
“So much of what gay people talk about is related to the act of sex
rather than to love or friendship,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And we can be
very self-absorbed, like some of the characters who couldn’t imagine
changing their own sexual habits. I mean, I get absorbed sometimes in
how hard I have it as a gay person, but then you see this play, and you
see how far we’ve come.”
Alexandria Jacobson, a 19-year-old lesbian who does outreach work among
high school students on H.I.V. and AIDS issues, found herself thinking
about identity issues in a different way. “I was surprised how much
stigmas have persisted,” she said, “that people with H.I.V.-AIDS are
even now stigmatized. So many gay people are still afraid to tell their
families that they are H.I.V. positive. It’s more socially acceptable to
be gay now than it was in the time of the play, but some gay people
still don’t feel they’re worthy of acceptance if they have H.I.V.-AIDS.”
For others the impact of the play fell squarely on their sexual choices.
A few young gay men said that they sometimes had sex without using
condoms, saying that it felt better that way, or that they lacked
condoms when sex presented itself and they did not want to kill the
mood. For all of the play’s dramatic power, they said, it would be
overly optimistic to believe that they would always have safe sex as a
result of a night at the theater.
“I feel in this lifestyle being safe, there’s only so much you can do,”
said Shawn McIntyre, a gay 19-year-old from Queens. “I feel it’s about
being smart and about just being positive in your own mentality.”
Wearing condoms during sex is always essential, he added; when asked if
he was always safe, Mr. McIntyre laughed nervously. “I try to be,” he
said, “I try to be.”
The assumed invincibility of youth is tough for any piece of theater to challenge, said Jerry Mitchell, the Tony Award-winning
choreographer, who recently secured 500 discounted tickets to “The
Normal Heart” for the dancers and others in Broadway Bares, the annual
charity event that raises money for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights
AIDS Organization. He wanted to give his performers, many of whom are
young gay men, “a stronger sense of why they’re dancing and taking off
their clothes every year at Broadway Bares, a stronger sense of why
we’re fighting.
“The most common reaction I heard from them afterward was, ‘I had no
idea about any of this,’ ” Mr. Mitchell said. “The reality is, when
you’re young, you can’t imagine anything killing you, whether it’s
bullets or AIDS. I’m not sure if a play can change that, but maybe this
play will inspire audience members to come up with new great ideas in
the fight.”
For her part Ms. Roth said she was inspired to produce the play not
because of money — the play will not end up turning a profit on Broadway
— but family: her son Jordan, a Broadway theater owner, is gay.
“When he came out to me was the moment I had to learn everything I could
about gay culture,” Ms. Roth said. “Bringing this play to others is in
that same spirit.”