There are some theater productions that you never forget. The 1987 remount of Next Theatre’s The Normal Heart at the Ivanhoe was one such show for me.
I had arrived in Chicago the previous fall from a small western New York town of 600. The big city gay scene I would steal into on weekend nights was thrilling, naturally, and also very, very scary. Men were dying from AIDS at an unimaginable rate. I would spend many of those bittersweet nights dancing happily with handsome bar patrons. Impossibly young, I would fall in love to the twist of the BPM. But on many occasions, these kind, marginally older men would turn me away at the night’s end, not wanting to expose me to the HIV virus they lived with.
The cast of that late ’80s version of Larry Kramer’s acclaimed piece were also living with that kind of day-to-day reality. Thus, it felt like every moment that they were onstage was visceral; pulsing with the truth of that experience. Indeed, cast member Scott McPherson, who would go on to find great posthumous fame as the writer of Marvin’s Room, would pass away in 1992 due to complications from the disease.
What makes redtwist theatre’s current production of the show so remarkable is that, despite the wide generational gap of this cast, it often beats with that same sort of recognizable resolve. Many of the performers here were incredibly young, perhaps not even alive yet, when the tragic circumstances of this play originally occurred. Yet they make it breathe with a profound, contemporary urgency. Watching, I often felt transported back to that night in the late eighties when I witnessed this messy masterwork for the very first time.
Surely, this is due in part to the powerful guidance of director Ted Hoerl, whose program notes let us know that he experienced the devastating consequences of this era first hand. The COVID epidemic would also seem to provide a touchstone for them. But more than anything, I feel it is the truth and power of Kramer’s 40 years-old words that ground the often excellent performers here to the reality of these tragic historical events.
A semi-autobiographical look at Kramer’s existence between 1981 and 1984, the play chronicles those years when the disease first emerged and as community outrage led to the forming of such support groups as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
After an encounter with the straight shooting Dr. Brookner (Tammy Rozofsky), Ned Weeks (Peter Ferneding), Kramer’s seeming counterpart here, begins an uphill battle to get New York City officials to recognize that some mysterious illness is killing gay men. Angry and confrontational, he often finds himself at odds with the people he has aligned himself with – a closeted banker (Philip C. Mathews), a sassy yet strong-hearted volunteer (Cameron Austin Brown) and an increasingly nervous Health Department employee (Joshua Servantez).
Finding love with Felix (Zachary Linnert), a handsome New York Times reporter, eventually smooths out his edges a bit, even allowing him to confront Ben (Christopher Meister), his loving but closed-minded brother. But as more men begin to die and Felix faces his own battles with the disease, Weeks’ anti-social antics unsurprisingly start to take a true toll on himself and those around him.
Staged as if in an open-faced alley, Hoerl directs this undertaking with laser-sharp grace, keeping a wise emphasis on the script and performances. Kramer’s work does not often follow a traditional structure. Important characters disappear for huge chunks of time, while scenes either end abruptly or carry on, ecstatically, with one monologue piling upon the next. But the lurching, all-encompassing fervor of Kramer’s vision perfectly captures this period in LGBTQ+ history, making this a singularly vital work.
This vitality finds a profound home here with Ferneding and Linnert, who provide heart-filled insightfulness as Ned and Felix. Matthews, meanwhile, is Ferneding’s perfect, uptight counterpart and Brown and Meister fill their characters with such real life emotionality that your heart almost breaks watching them at times.
All involved beautifully and passionately show that, although time has passed and medical strides have changed the face of HIV forever, the essential core of Kramer’s passion project is still as prescient and timely as ever.
The Normal Heart runs through Sept. 29 at redtwist theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Further information is available at www.redtwisttheatre.org.