The Normal Heart


The Normal Heart is a largely autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. The play's title comes from W. H. Auden's poem, "September 1, 1939".
After a successful 1985 off-Broadway production at The Public Theater, the play was staged in Los Angeles and London. It was revived off-Broadway in 2004, and finally made its Broadway debut in 2011. The play was first published by Plume in the US, and by Drama Editor Nick Hern for Methuen in the UK to coincide with the 1986 British première at London's Royal Court Theatre. He then reissued it in his own imprint Nick Hern Books in 2011 when first staged on Broadway, and again in a tie-in edition alongside the National Theatre revival in 2021.

Characters

  • Craig Donner
  • Mickey Marcus
  • Ned Weeks
  • Dr. Emma Brookner
  • Bruce Niles
  • Felix Turner
  • Ben Weeks
  • Tommy Boatwright
  • Hiram Keebler

    Synopsis

During the early 1980s, Jewish-American writer and gay activist Ned Weeks struggles to pull together an organization focused on raising awareness about the fact that an unidentified disease is killing off a specific group of people: gay men, largely in New York City. Dr. Emma Brookner, a physician and survivor of polio, has the most experience with this strange new disease. She bemoans the lack of medical knowledge about the illness, and encourages gay men to practice abstinence for their own safety, since it is still unknown how the disease is spread. Ned, a patient and friend of Brookner's, calls upon his lawyer brother, Ben, to help fund his crisis organization; however, Ben's attitude toward his brother is one of merely passive support, which ultimately exposes his homophobia. For the first time in his life, meanwhile, Ned falls in love, beginning a relationship with New York Times writer Felix Turner.
The increasing death toll raises the unknown illness, by this time correctly believed to be caused by a virus, to the status of an epidemic, though the press remains largely silent on the issue. A sense of urgency guides Ned, who realizes that Ben is more interested in buying a two-million-dollar house than in backing Ned's activism. Ned explosively breaks off ties with his brother, not wanting further interaction until Ben can fully accept Ned's homosexuality. Ned next looks to Mayor Ed Koch's administration for help in financing research about the epidemic, which has now killed hundreds of gay men, including some of Ned's personal friends.
Ned's organization elects as its president Bruce Niles, who is described as the "good cop" of gay activism in implicit comparison to Ned: while Bruce is cautious, polite, deferential, and closeted, Ned is vociferous, confrontational, incendiary, openly gay, and supportive only of direct action. Tensions between the two are clear, though they must work together to effectively promote their organization. Felix, meanwhile, reveals to Ned his belief that he is now infected with the mysterious virus.
Although he continues to try to strengthen interactions with the mayor, Ned ruins his chances when his relentless and fiery personality appalls a representative sent by the mayor. Dr. Brookner gradually takes on the role of activist herself, and notes the epidemic's appearance in other countries and among heterosexuals. Although she desperately seeks government funding for further research, her request is denied; the rejection prompts her to unleash a passionate tirade against those who allow the persistence of an epidemic that is taking the lives of homosexuals, who are already marginalized by the government. In the meantime, Ned's conflict with Bruce comes to a head, and their organization's board of directors ultimately expels Ned from the group, believing his unstable vehemence to be a threat to the group's attempts to engage in calmer diplomacy.
As Felix's condition worsens, he visits Ben in order to make his will, and in the hope of effecting a reconciliation between Ben and his brother. All of them, along with Emma, meet at Felix's deathbed. Emma unofficially weds Felix and Ned, and Felix dies immediately after. Ned blames himself for his lover's death, lamenting that he did not fight hard enough to make his voice heard. The play ends with Ned and Ben embracing. As the stage fades to black, the rate of mortality from HIV/AIDS is shown to be continuing to increase.

Autobiographical parallels

After most performances of the 2011 revival of The Normal Heart, Kramer personally passed out a dramaturgical flyer detailing some of the real stories behind the play's characters. Kramer wrote that the character "Bruce" was based on Paul Popham, the president of the GMHC from 1981 until 1985; "Tommy" was based on Rodger McFarlane, who was executive director of GMHC and a founding member of ACT UP and Broadway Cares; and "Emma" was modeled after Dr. Linda Laubenstein, who treated some of the first New York cases of what later became known as AIDS. Like "Ned," Kramer himself helped to found several AIDS-activism groups, including Gay Men's Health Crisis and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and indeed experienced personal conflict with his lawyer brother, Arthur.
It has been suggested that the model for 'Felix' was John Duka, a New York Times style reporter who died of AIDS-related complications in 1989.

Productions

1985–1999

Produced by Joseph Papp and directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the play opened off-Broadway at The Public Theater on April 21, 1985, and ran for 294 performances. The original cast included Brad Davis as Ned and D. W. Moffett as Felix, with David Allen Brooks as Bruce Niles and Concetta Tomei as Dr. Emma Brookner. Joel Grey replaced Davis later in the run.
During the original 1985 production, the set was very simple with a small amount of furniture and the set walls consisted of white-washed plywood. All along these walls and even the theatre walls, there were facts, newspaper headlines, figures and names that were involved in the HIV/AIDS Epidemic painted in black. For example, one of the passages written on the set read, "During the first nineteen months of the epidemic, The New York Times wrote about it a total of seven times" and another passage read, "During the three months of the Tylenol scare in 1982, The New York Times wrote about it a total of 54 times". The text that was painted onto the set was updated and revised constantly. One fact stated the latest number of AIDS cases nationally, and if the number increased, before the next performance the set designers would cross out the old number and, below it, paint the new figure.
The play received its European premiere in 1986 at London's Royal Court Theatre, where it was directed by David Hayman and produced by Bruce Hyman. In that production Ned Weeks was initially played by Martin Sheen who received an Olivier Award nomination as Best Actor. When it transferred to the Albery Theatre Ned Weeks was played by Tom Hulce and then John Shea. For that production Paul Jesson, who played Felix, won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.
The Normal Heart received its Polish premiere in 1987 at the Polish Theatre in Poznań where it was directed by. The Polish cast included as Ned Weeks and as Tommy Boatwright, with Andrzej Szczytko as Bruce Niles and Irena Grzonka as Dr. Emma Brookner.
In a student production of the play at Cambridge University in 1988, the role of Felix was played by Nick Clegg.
The play received its Australian premiere at the Sydney Theatre Company in 1989, directed by Wayne Harrison.
In subsequent productions of the play, Ned Weeks was portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss in Los Angeles, and Raul Esparza in a 2004 Off-Broadway revival directed by David Esbjornson at the Public.
On April 18, 1993, Barbra Streisand organized and introduced a benefit reading for Broadway Cares at the Roundabout Theatre Company. It starred Kevin Bacon, John Turturro, Harry Hamlin, D.W. Moffett, Tony Roberts, David Drake, Kevin Geer, Eric Bogosian, Jonathan Hadary and Stockard Channing as Emma Brookner.

2000s

The show had an Off-Broadway revival in 2004 at the Public Theater presented by the Worth Street Theater Company, starring Raúl Esparza as Ned Weeks and Joanna Gleason and Lisa Kron as Dr. Brookner, directed by David Esbjornson and lighting design by Ken Billington. The success of this revival lead to the 2011 Broadway production.
The Broadway premiere of The Normal Heart began on April 19, 2011, for a limited 12-week engagement at the Golden Theatre. This production used elements employed in a staged reading, directed by Joel Grey, held in October 2010. The cast featured Joe Mantello as Ned, Ellen Barkin as Dr. Brookner, John Benjamin Hickey as Felix, Lee Pace as Bruce Niles, and Jim Parsons as Tommy Boatwright. Joel Grey made his Broadway directing debut; George C. Wolfe was supervising director. The production supported several "nonprofit organizations, including The Actors Fund and Friends In Deed."
In the 2011 Broadway revival, when the actors weren't in the scene they would stand along the walls of the set and watch from the shadows the scene being performed. Towards the end of the play when Felix dies, he leaves Ned alone on center stage and steps back to where the other actors are, along the shadowy walls of the set. This Broadway production also echoed the original idea to have the white-washed walls covered with facts and figures. During the finale of this production, names of those affected by the AIDS Epidemic were gradually projected onto the walls until the set was completely covered in names, marking the end of the play.
A production at Washington, D.C.'s, Arena Stage was scheduled to run from June 8 to July 29, 2012.
A production produced by Studio 180 Theatre at Buddies in Bad Times theatre in Toronto, Ontario, in 2011 and 2012 starred Jonathan Wilson as Ned Weeks and John Bourgeois as Ben.
In May 2021, the One Institute presented a historic virtual reading of "The Normal Heart" reaching audiences across the United States and in 19 countries across the globe. The virtual presentation marked the first time the play featured a cast that is predominately BIPOC and LGBTQ. Directed by Emmy Award winner Paris Barclay, cast members of the production included Sterling K. Brown, Laverne Cox, Jeremy Pope, Vincent Rodriguez III, Guillermo Díaz, Jake Borelli, Ryan O’Connell, Daniel Newman, Jay Hayden and Danielle Savre. An encore presentation of the reading streamed worldwide in December 2021 in honor of World AIDS Day.
A London revival of the play was originally scheduled to begin performances at the National Theatre in Spring 2021, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It began previews on 23 September 2021 at the National's Olivier Theatre, with a Dominic Cooke-directed cast led by Ben Daniels, Liz Carr and Luke Norris. The production, staged in part celebration of the play's 35th anniversary and the author, received largely positive reviews. Many critics noted social and political parallels between the play's representation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. The revival ran until 6 November 2021, and received five Laurence Olivier Award nominations the following year, including Best Revival and Best Actor for Daniels. Carr won the Olivier for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and Daniels received a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor.
The State Theatre Company of South Australia staged the play at the Adelaide Festival Centre in October 2022, directed by Dean Bryant, with STCSA artistic director Mitchell Butel as Ned and Mark Saturno as Ben.