Customer Reviews

The Normal Heart and the Destiny of Me

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While I consider myself a regular theatre-goer, I've always been aware of Kramer's plays and opinions, yet I haven't seen nor read either of these two plays. That changed this past weekend when I saw the revival of Normal Heart currently playing off-Broadway. This is a viscerally emotional piece of theatre and it makes one feel impassioned about what was going on in the world then and sheds a new light as to what's going on now in regards to the HIV/AIDS crisis. It's a must red if you don't have a chance to see it.

These two plays, linked by the central character (author Larry Kramer's alter-ego), are among the most important documents related to AIDS and gay life in America in the 1980s. Although some found Kramer's activism too shrill in the 80s, he has been proven right about almost everything he foresaw in regards to AIDS. THE NORMAL HEART is a docu-drama in which Kramer sends his angry central character through all facets of American life where he discovers only apathy, failure, and cover-ups regarding the AIDS epidemic. THE DESTINY OF ME continues the story of the central character, taking a more personal approach to the AIDS epidemic and, particularly, provides a portrait of a man whose activism is driven as much by the epidemic as by his family and his personal life. THE NORMAL HEART is frequently produced and deserves to be, it appropriately raises the issues that continue to hamper the defeat of AIDS and the equality of gays and lesbians in American society. Playwright Tony Kushner's introduction is a valuable response to Kramer's significance.

There is no better insight about the treatment of homosexuals in the mid-eighties. People may not know how swept under the rug homosexuals were. Families didn't want anything to do with their gay relatives, and governments didn't want to show the gay community any sympathy. Read this play and maybe you'll learn something. The AIDS epidemic in New York was a crucial part of the gay community's development, and the details are charted truthfully here.

The Normal Heart was a brave attempt to confront the public with the AIDS epidemic at a time when it was decimating America's gay population and was still seen as a 'Gay Plague.' Unfortunately it was not well written enough to do more than mildly shock and disgust.

I used to think I didn't sympathize with the characters because they are gay and I'm not, but this is not the case. It is because the characters are not developed as interesting and worthwhile personalities beyond their sexuality and disease.

A mysterious killer disease like AIDS is hard to write about because good play writing needs to be about the interplay of factors, whereas AIDS is just a remorseless slide into disease and death. It is very difficult for those affected to respond in a coherent or meaningful way. There can be no powerful dialogue between man and disease. Instead of powerful action-reaction sequences to stimulate our emotions and intellect, the play is broken into confused monologues that rail against fate and fail to develop any real insight.

As the play is supposed to be about AIDS, it avoids being about much else, but it doesn't effectively connect with it's subject matter either. AIDS is merely a gloomy backdrop for the self-absorbed writhings and torment of the diseased characters. I am supposed to sympathize with them, but I only find this spectacle disgusting and devoid of noble or inspiring emotions.