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1986

The Normal Heart

Written by Larry Kramer

Play Details

Context

Artistic Director
Max Stafford Clark

Part of
New York Shakespeare Festival

Dates Performed

Thursday 20th March 1986
Jerwood Theatre Downstairs

Play Details

Synopsis

New York City in the early 1980s

A realist drama, over three years, told in multiple scenes and locations, chronologically.

At the beginning of the HIV-AIDS crisis, journalist Ned Weekes and doctor Emma Brookner fight against complacency, prejudice, bureaucracy, and denial to raise awareness of and raise funds for research into, a new disease that is killing gay men at an alarming rate.

Director(s)

David Hayman

Photo credit

All images credited to Donald Cooper

 

Cast & Creative

Cast

Mark Burton

Cast

Richard Cordery

Cast

Philip Cade

Cast

Frank Copperstone

Cast

Nancy Crane

Cast

Angelo Gibson

Cast

Ian Keith

Cast

Stuart Fox

Cast

John Shea

Cast

Aaron Swartz

Designer

Geoff Rose

Lighting

Gerry Jenkinson

Costume

Cathie Skilbeck

Deputy Stage Manager

Fiona Bardsley

What our readers said

 

Loosely inspired by real events, the play documents how those attempting to see off what would become a devastating global epidemic were blocked at every turn. At the same time, it is an intimate portrait of gay lives, and loves, in New York in the early 80s.

What’s it like reading this play now? Hows it aged? What does it speak to etc?

The play feels to me like a vital dramatic document of the beginning of an era that we are still living in. It exposes the slowness of politicians, science, and society, in general, to respond to the emergence of HIV-AIDS, despite the best efforts of individual medics and members of civil society.

What does it tell us about the past and present?

It reminds us that the virus that is more treatable now than ever was once a mystery, and a deadly one and that it took the efforts of the LGBTQIA community to force action on the part of the powers that should have been investigating. It warns us against complacency.

 

Want to read the script?

 

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