Life Lessons in ‘Normal Heart’

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/theater/young-gays-on-broadways-normal-heart-revival.html

IAN SMITH was born and raised in the 1980s in Bangor, Me., a world away from the young gay men of New York City of that era who were among the first to die of complications from AIDS. Mr. Smith, 29, is gay himself, and in Manhattan he has heard stories about some of those men from their friends and lovers who survived. But nothing prepared him for the shock he felt recently seeing “The Normal Heart,” the Broadway drama about the early years of AIDS, which won the Tony Award for best play revival this month.


The fear and terror of the gay characters onstage, Mr. Smith said in an interview outside the theater, was such a sharp contrast to his own experience, in which friends can be casual about using condoms. His eyes still wet from tears, he recalled how one friend recently had a scare and thought he might have contracted H.I.V.

“It was actually kind of frightening, because he was like, ‘Well, at this point, even if I got infected, it’s not the worst thing in the world anymore,’ ” Mr. Smith said. “And you see this play and you’re like, ‘The ’80s seem a long time ago, and yet we’re making the same dumb mistakes.’ ”

If “The Normal Heart” was the playwright Larry Kramer’s war cry against AIDS and apathy during its original Off Broadway run in 1985, the revival is more like a heart-tugging lesson about friendship and love under siege for people who were not alive or aware during that era. In hopes of sharing a slice of gay history that many teachers and textbooks do not impart, the producers of “The Normal Heart” have been sharply discounting tickets to $30 for people under 30 on Thursday nights, and they are now planning a United States tour of the production as well as a run in London.

[William769]

1. Living through the experience, was enough for me.

But as for history for those who did not live through it or was touched by it great!

rec.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. When that play was new it was amazing and very important.

God bless Larry Kramer. It was so powerful. People will often call a work of art 'important' but in this case I mean it. The Normal Heart used theater as a method of communication and activism and I am most certain the play saved lives. Knowledge = Life. This is an important play.

[w8liftinglady]

3. I remember seeing it with one of my co-workers right before he came out to everyone

It gave him the courage,the self-worth... not an easy task here.