“We’re still fighting the disease.”

From The Economist.

“The Normal Heart”: Thumping, boiling and loving; Larry Kramer’s seminal play about AIDS makes its Broadway debut

WHOEVER thought you could die just from having sex? Surely only the God of the Old Testament would imagine a plague that smites gay men just as they are starting to enjoy themselves. But in New York in the early 1980s a mysterious illness was suddenly ravaging these men. People would literally “cough, go home and then die in two weeks,” says a former employee of the downtown Public Theatre at the time. “It was horrifying.”

It was the Public that first staged “The Normal Heart”, Larry Kramer’s raging, rabble-rousing play about AIDS, in 1985. The HIV virus had just been discovered, but government officials were moving slowly, reluctant even to mention the epidemic by name. “Who cares if a faggot dies?” asks a doctor in the play. A meditation on gay men fighting for their lives, “The Normal Heart” went on to become the longest-running hit in the Public’s history. Now, over a quarter of a century later, the show has arrived on Broadway, with both bark and bite intact.

“This play has an enormous number of ghosts,” says Mr Kramer, who based the story on his own experiences, lovers and friends, many of whom are now dead. At nearly 76, he seems a little surprised to be alive himself, having been infected with HIV for decades. Much has changed since the play was first produced—HIV is no longer a death sentence. But Mr Kramer, a longtime activist, is hardly counting blessings. “Gay people are hated in a huge part of the world, and we refuse to fight back.”

The play centres on Ned Weeks, a nebbishy and combative gay man. Inhabited here by Joe Mantello (pictured with John Benjamin Hickey as Ned’s lover, Felix). Ned is full of fury. He attacks the mayor, Ed Koch, for his negligence, the media for their silence and his fellow gay men for their sexual irresponsibility. His provocative antics get attention, but they also alienate his friends. Men who had finally achieved some kind of sexual freedom don’t want to be bullied about their bodies. Meanwhile, Felix gets sick.

“The Normal Heart” is designed to grab viewers by the lapels and give them a good shake. Full of expository dialogue and dramatic monologues that carry on a few beats too long, the play is more agitprop than art. “I wanted to get the message out fast,” Mr Kramer concedes. But it is also powerful and unfailingly moving, not only as an historic document but also for its unsparing look at physical deterioration and premature death. “We’re still fighting the disease,” says one theatregoer. Another marvels at how fresh the play feels, given the shame and recklessness that still bedevil gay people. “We don’t have gay marriage, so we don’t have role models for lives that aren’t about loneliness, sex and drinking,” he says. He is 28, and three of his friends are HIV-positive.

Elton John and his partner, David Furnish, may take this production to London. A film could also be in the works. Yet Mr Kramer is still angry—about the people who will needlessly die from the disease, about the cure that hasn’t been found. “I don’t want to lose my anger,” he says. “There’s work to do.”

“The Normal Heart” is at the John Golden Theatre in New York until July 10th