By the time I reached grade school in the early '90s, thehysteria around the AIDS crisis had calmed. AZT had been approved by the FDA and diagnosis was nolonger a death sentence. My generation didn't experience the intense not-knowing of the1980s, which Larry Kramer's 1985 play TheNormal Heart portrays in sharp detail. Kramer wrote the play from insidethe panic, and it is full of questions, fear and, chillingly, many topics thatstill come up with frequency.
At the Santa Fe Playhouse, the cast of 11 men and one womanwas clearly deeply invested in the production. While there were somestumbles that could be attributed to opening-night jitters or the weight ofsuch a seminal piece, overall the cast handles the heavy material well underthe direction of Santa Fe newcomer Duchess Dale. The Playhouse originally scheduled the production to coincide with national Pride Month (despite our president's refusal to acknowledge it and the Santa Fe HRA's decision to move our celebration to September to more readily include the college community).
It’s an unfortunate habit of anyone upset by anadministration’s policies to casually toss off references to the Holocaust, andto call anyone you don’t like a Nazi, but the references by contemporary LGBTQ+activists raise goosebumps: How else to communicate the severity of the currentrounding-up and torturing of gay men in Chechnya? Or the absolutely patently insane claims from Chechen spokesman AlviKarimov that the murders of gay men are not true because "there are nohomosexuals in Chechnya. You cannot detain and persecute those who do notexist"?
In describing their friends’ appearances at their death,the men of The Normal Heart say thedead looked like they had been in Auschwitz. Doctors refuse to touch them,coroners refuse to come in the room; they are brought out the back doors ofhospitals in garbage bags. Even after thousands of deaths, there wasstill no significant funding for AIDS research; meanwhile, theplay repeatedly references the muscle thrown behind eight deaths attributed toTylenol.
But still, drawing comparisons to the Holocaust are calledmelodramatic, insulting.
So, here we have made it more than 300 words and I’ve barely even mentionedthis particular production. This is to be expected, I guess—it is such anintense and important subject, it’s easy and perhaps even necessary to lean heavilyon the story and the information disseminated. I’m doing it here, and perhapsthe cast at the Playhouse does it as well.
Especially in the first scene, lines were recitedwithout much feeling, rattled off in proper succession, relying on the storybeing told rather than the investment behind the lines. But thensuddenly—woah—Craig (a pale, sickly Mark Westberg) is brought in convulsing,held down on the table in Dr. Emma Brookner’s office. Soon, he is dead. OK,shit just got real.
To be fair, playwright Kramer doesn’t allow for muchgetting-to-know-you in this play. We’re quickly introduced to Ned Weeks, writerand activist, here played by Hania Stocker. Ned and his friends walk atightrope of wanting to be recognized as special because they are gay, and wanting to be respected as regular peopledespite being gay. As the mysteriousvirus overtakes New York City, they form the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), settingup hotlines, arranging fundraisers and sending mailings.
They are flanked by Dr. Brookner (Lorri Layle Oliver), aphysician courageous enough to treat a disease whose cause she can’t identify,and by Ned’s brother Ben (Jeff Nell), a lawyer who lends his legal knowledgebut only sometimes his public support. Ned becomes romantically involved withFelix Turner (Welde Carmichael), who—expectedly, but still upsettingly—developsan ominous purple spot on his foot.
All in all, this production reminded me of a circustent. There were a few immense, remarkable moments from these skilled actors,but other stretches sagged between the bright spots. Overall, the effect isstill an impressive production, but there are a few performances that stood outfrom the rest.
We would be remiss not to start out with Stocker’sportrayal of Ned. This casting choice was impeccable; Stocker as the activistis infuriated and infuriating, while simultaneously awkward and tender in hisinteractions with Felix. Ned is constantly bubbling beneath the surface. Whileother actors on this stage seem to be missing the visible background storiestheir characters require, Ned has it all. We can almost see the fizz offrustration under his skin.
Opposite Stocker is Carmichael’s Felix, a society writerfor the New York Times who always gets whathe wants and doesn’t view being gay as a hindrance. He’s smooth and funny andgenuinely likeable, and his descent into illness is wrenchingly portrayed.
Another notable, if occasionally inconsistent,performance is Tommy Boatwright, here played by Tristan VanCleave. Van Cleave’s program bio notes that he only started acting in 2015, andhis freshness isn’t betrayed by his performance. He has a natural feelingonstage, if sometimes flippant. The youngest of the group of activists,speaking in an almost cartoony Southern lilt and shamelessly coming on to hiscolleagues, he serves both as comic relief and, as the play moves forward, astrong voice in the GMHC.
There was one monologue in this show that actually leftmy mouth hanging open, and it was from David McConnell as a flawless MickeyMarcus. Mickey is introduced to us, like Tommy, as comic relief—light in theheels and full of giggles, he was a strong advocate for promiscuity in the gaycommunity. In the absence of rights or respect, he believed gay men should beable to do whatever they wanted in bars and bathhouses. Of course, this hasbackfired by 1984, and Mickey, who works by day with the New York CityDepartment of Health and by night advocating for AIDS patients with the GMHC,reaches the end of his rope in the second act.
After answering a phone call about another “theory” ofwhere AIDS was coming from, Mickey launches into a tirade: He’s sick of hearingtheories, sick of communicating these theories, sick of feeling in the dark andalone and terrified. McConnell is practically foaming at the mouth by the timehe dissolves into fear: “Do you think the president really wants this tohappen?” he asks. “Do you think the CIA really has unleashed germ warfare tokill off all the queers Jerry Falwell doesn't want? Why should they help us?We're actually cooperating with them by dying!”
The vitriol spewed by Mickey here is all the moredisarming coming from a person as affable as McConnell. Tommy moves to comforthim, offers to take him home, but Mickey doesn’t want to go home. There is nohome. There is no safe place. “I’m just afraid,” Mickey says from Tommy’s arms.We have no words of comfort.
Each actor, as it were, delivers potent material. Thereare rending monologues and interactions that leave us slayed. But the singlemost heartbreaking moment of this play, perhaps, is also one of the mostunexpected, and it comes from a bag of groceries.
Toward the end of the play, Felix’s body is failing, hisface riddled with purple lesions. Ned has gone to the store to get food. Nedarrives home to find Felix curled on the floor in a blanket, eatingmarshmallows one by one, a box of Twinkies open on the coffee table. Ned urgesFelix to have some dinner. Felix declines.
Stocker stands up in frustration. “Youcan't eat the food? Don't eat the food,” he says, the hurt palpable in hisvoice. “I don't care. You can't get up off the floor—fine, stay there. I don'tcare.”
He reaches into the brown grocery bag, pulling out theingredients one by one, tossing them offstage in anger. Fish, lettuce,broccoli, bread, it all goes flying. And then he pulls out a carton of milk. Heangrily opens it and upturns it, pouring it all over the stage. "Who would everwant any milk? You might get some calcium in your bones," he spits at Felix. Hethrows the carton on the floor.
Everything that milk is—care, love, nurturing, effort,comfort—is for nothing. There is nothing left to do. The scene between Stockerand Carmichael was the highest emotional point in the play and the lowestemotional point for the audience, but it was exquisite to be brought to that place of hurt byactors so fine.
The Normal Heart
988-4262, santafeplayhouse.org
