Theatre is one medium in which
artists can express their passions and viewpoints. Larry Kramer uses his play, The Normal Heart to bring awareness to
issues that are important to him personally.
Larry Kramer was the founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP ("Huffington Post"). This
play is what gained Kramer his notoriety.
After his novel, Faggots, was
published, he was widely disregarded as an extremist and offensive by some. As
someone who is infected with the HIV virus, it is clear that his connection to
the subject materials was a personal one (Green). The
Normal Heart is set in the 1980s and was originally produced by Joseph Papp
in 1985. It ran for 294 performances at
The Public Theater with Michal Lindsay-Hogg directing and Joel Grey as Ned
Weeks. In 2004, there was an
Off-Broadway revival. There was also a Broadway revival in 2011 that was quite
well received, winning several awards, including the Tony for Best Revival of a
Play, Best Featured Actress for Ellen Barking and Best Featured Actor for John
Benjamin Hickey. Outside of the Tony Awards, The Normal Heart was also won three Drama Desk Awards, two Outer
Critics Circle Awards, and two Theatre World Awards, among others. This
production was directed by Joel Grey who had played the original Ned Weeks in
its original staging. To continue with its activist agenda, the 2011 revival
committed a percentage of each week’s profits to non-profit organizations, such
as Freedom to Marry, Human Rights Campaign, and Friends In Deed (Normal
Heart).
The production was rife with
relevant issues affecting people of the eighties at the time. Notes at the beginning of the play, which
Kramer included, spoke to the media coverage of the Tylenol scare during that
same time period, which included seven deaths. He compared this with the “gay
cancer” which was spreading about New York with little to no media coverage. This point was also brought up in the
dialogue of the play. Kramer also drew
an analogy between the willful ignorance of American Jews during the German
Holocaust and the lack of action by the gay community in response to the plague
spreading through their community. As
the Jews, along with the general American population, chose to ignore the
obvious signs that something was terribly wrong in Hitler’s Germany, the gay
community and United States citizens at large refused to acknowledge the dark
truth lurking behind the deaths amongst the gay population at the time (Kramer).
The
Normal Heart serves as a way to ask many questions of the audience that are
universally relatable. Beyond the
obvious issue of gay rights and dealing with issues in the gay community,
deeper and more confounding inquiries are raised. How is it possible to be true to one’s self
with no support and great amounts of opposition? Is it worth fighting for the good of a people
who seem, not only uninterested in helping themselves, but who also give no
support for those who are fighting for them?
Throughout the course of the play many characters act in a manner that
is completely counterintuitive to the continuance of their lifestyle. They not only do not act to help themselves,
but attack Ned Weeks as he attempts to act as their advocate at great personal
cost.
Another running theme in the course of
this play is that of family and its importance to an individual. Is it possible for family members with vastly
different ideas and backgrounds to love each other in spite of their
differences or must there always be a compromise in order to achieve harmony? This same line of thought applies to the role
of government as it relates to its citizens.
Should social stigma surrounding a social group prevent that group from
receiving government advocacy when lives are at stake? Does the power of
information hold the key to saving lives, and if it does, then should
government be given the power to play God in the matters that decide who lives
and who dies? Do doctors have a moral
obligation to go to the media when there is a disease that could affect the
lives of hundreds of thousands of people and is not being handled by government
agencies? Should the doctors be exempt from negative retaliation in response to
their advocacy?
There is also the ever-pressing question
of whether or not homosexuality is a disease in the way that AIDS is a
disease. Should members of the gay
community be treated as second class citizens based upon who it is they find
attractive and feel affection for? Some
of these answers appear obvious, but as Bruce faces the fear of being fired and
ostracized from society due to the facts of his lifestyle, these questions
arise. Not only does he stand to lose
his job, his benefits, and his means for making a life for himself, like so
many others in the group, he stands to lose his credibility in society along
with those who have already been stripped of their dignity and pressured into
fitting a stereotype for what a man should be in the gay community.
In the end, the issues being tackled in The Normal Heart are just as relevant
today as they were when the play was first written. In today’s society, should
people treat each other with fear and derision due to their differences or
embrace them as part of what makes us all human?
1. Why
did Ned’s actions alienate him from his fellow members of the gay community?
2. How
does a difference in opinion on the manner in which one choose to live their
life affect the way that they are treated by those closest to them?
3. Given
Bruce’s fears and worries as they pertained to his losing his career due to his
sexuality, and his unwillingness to defend the lives of his fellow men, is his
fear more telling of his personality than his sexuality?
4. Why
is it that the 2011 revival of this play was so successful on Broadway?
5. What
relevance does this story continue to have in our society? Why do these same issues continue to affect
people of today’s audiences?
6. Did
the medical field have an obligation to inform everyone of the severity of the
situation, despite the threat of causing a public panic?
7. Why
is it that Larry Kramer felt that this volatile character was the best outlet
for telling this particular story?
8. Does
the persona of the gay community prevent some people from taking gay issues
seriously?
9. Should
government agencies be able to downplay the issues affecting a group of
individuals due to the fact that it does not seem to be directly affecting the
population at large?
10. Is
there significance to the similarities in Doctor Brookner and Ned Weeks? Do
their personalities indicate something what it takes to stand by a cause, not
because it is popular, but due to a moral obligation?
Source
Cited:
"FAQ." The Normal Heart. N.p.. Web. 5
Feb 2013. <http://www.thenormalheartbroadway.com/faq.php>.
Green, Jesse. "4,000 Pages and
Counting." New York News
and Features. N.p., 04 Jan 2010. Web. 5 Feb 2013.
Kramer, Larry. The
Normal Heart. Print.
"Larry Kramer." The Huffington Post. The
Huffington Post. Web. 5 Feb 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-kramer>.
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