The Normal Heart

The Normal Heart was powerfully staged by the STC in 1989; this compelling revival production comes from the State Theatre of SA, when headed by Mitchell Butel, who again plays the leading role in Sydney (and is now the STC’s AD). It’s partly autobiographical; Ned Weeks is based on Kramer’s own experience as a campaigning writer and co-founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (and the activist group ACT UP), but Kramer was thrown out by colleagues exhausted by his fury.

But that fury drives Kramer’s play, almost overcoming Week’s endless tirades of current details and misconceptions then about AIDS, often exploding into comic relief or collapsing in tender tears.  Kramer’s exasperation is the silence in his own camp; gays, especially the rich and powerfully connected ones, who remain closeted and silent, and antagonistic to others who rock the boat. Even the Crisis Group’s amiable President, Bruce (a compassionate if fearful Tim Draxl) is still in the closet!  But as Weeks shouts, Silence equals Death.

Weeks never stops haranguing his comrades, and every possible journalist and bureaucrat with very eloquent abuse.  Luckily, for balance, there‘s much platonic and romantic love in The Normal Heart. Butel portrays a finely calibrated Weeks, earnest, even messianic, yet droll and self-effacing, and able finally to find love with the fashion journalist, Felix (an authentic lover in Nicholas Brown).  

And Mark Saturno plays Weeks’ brother, Ben, a successful lawyer, impatient but fixed in his filial loyalty – despite another insightful scene as Weeks tears into him for not equating gay relationships with straight ones.

On Jeremy Allen’s open, warehouse-style set, the play begins in the clinic in 1981 as young men (notably a terrified lad, Fraser Morrison) wait for the doctor to explain dark spots across their body. Wheelchair-bound Emma Jones plays the no-fuss doctor staggered why the gays are silent; she’s under-projected at first but certainly matches Weeks when she attacks her medical superiors for their negligence.

At the rear, musicians Michael Griffiths and Rowena Macneish induce reflective moments on piano and cello.  Nigel Levings’ lighting guides our focus across the wide stage and Dean Bryant’s direction is pacy but well-punctuated.

Evan Lever plays an exhausted volunteer close to suicide and Keiynan Lonsdale a caring and flamboyant nurse, strong stories which add depth and pause but explored a bit late in the narrative. There’s a lot to fit in.  Worth seeing.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Neil Bennett