'The Normal Heart' Beats On

Saw and thoroughly enjoyed the Broadway revival of "The Normal Heart" last night at the Golden Theatre. (Chelsea Clinton sighting only added to the momentous feeling of the occasion!) Although I get press tickets to dozens of plays each year, this was the first show in ages that I actually bought tickets for -- the last time I can remember paying for theater tickets, ironically enough, was in the '90s to see "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me" -- but I definitely got my money's worth from this work that must have been excruciatingly close to the bone in its first run but has now become a historical record of what is arguably America's most shameful moment (when the action in the play begins, there were 41 cases; as of 2011, 35 million people have died of AIDS).

How Joe Mantello didn't get a Tony is beyond explanation (he should have won for the date scene alone!) and John Benjamin Hickey was pretty damn great, too. (Ed Note: Just noticed Hickey won for best featured actor!) The scene where Bruce (Lee Pace, guess why I like him!) tells the harrowing tale of no one in Phoenix being willing to remove -- let alone prepare -- his dead lover's body from the hospital was especially poignant, and perhaps the rawest reminder of just how hopeless and heart-wrenching things were in the early days of the epidemic. I loved all the performances -- who could resist scene-stealer Jim Parsons? -- and thought the sets were simple yet imaginative. (I took a "What You Should Be When You Grow Up" aptitude test once in high school and "set decorator" was the answer, so I "know" about these things. Apparently "hair dresser" was sold out!)

Besides being moved and saddened and angry, my two other gut reactions to the show were this: I was surprised by how compact it was. I'd forgotten that it was written years before Kramer moved on to ACT-UP, so I was expecting it to be a bit more epic. (This is neither a criticism nor a suggestion, just an admission of my own ignorance.) My other reaction -- which my friend Christopher, below, in town visiting from Pennsylvania, also noted-- was that there was no portrayal of Richard Berkowitz, a brash former S&M prostitute (are there any other kind?) who, along with friend Michael Callen and Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, was urging men not to have unprotected anal sex as early as 1982. (See "Sex Positive" to learn more, it's a little-known and fascinating part of the story.)

In the play, we see Dr. Emma Brookner implore Ned to tell gay men to stop having sex (altogether) until they can figure out what is going on -- which he doesn't think is practical, so doesn't -- yet he is portrayed as the "only" person willing to make any noise and stick his neck out for this deadly crisis, with most of his shortcomings neatly placed under the umbrella of "doing it for the cause." Some have criticized the play as being too self-serving -- I didn't find it to be overly so, Ned certainly doesn't come off smelling like daisies -- but a little more acknowledgement of others' work would have gone a long way toward eliminating that criticism. (While Berkowitz was deemed "sex negative" and self-hating for calling people out on their promiscuity, he actually authored "How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach," a guide to STILL HAVING sex!) And for the record, Kramer's joint appearances on TV shows with Berkowitz in the early days of the epidemic were not his finest moments, and his reasoning for not being as blunt as Berkowitz mirror his GMHC colleagues' passive approach at dealing with the mayor's office almost identically. I would say that it's fine to leave this out of the play -- stories are shaped, events are condensed, etc. -- except that sometimes it feels like Kramer has it edited it out of his own history as well, perhaps because it doesn't fit the persona he wants to portray. All in all, a relatively minor criticism to an otherwise brilliant piece of work that I still pray one day will get a proper film treatment. For better or worse, things don't really become part of American culture until they're put on film, and this one needs to be recorded for generations to come.

As we exited, Michael snapped what he thought was the perfect -- and totally discreet -- photo of Chelsea Clinton, only to realize some Long Islander "lookin' for her husband" jumped in front of him at the exact moment he took it. (Damn you, Mary Jo Buttafuoco!) Christopher smiled at at the former first daughter and said hi, to which she -- with no inflection, eye contact and slurred speech -- replied: "Hi, how are ... (the rest trails off to a mumble and an eye roll). It was ALMOST as good as the play, trust me!