The artistic staff of TimeLine Theatre originally approached acclaimed out director David Cromer ( Our Town, Adding Machine ) to direct its 2013 production of Larry Kramer's monumental 1985 AIDS drama The Normal Heart. But to their pleasant surprise, Cromer turned down the offer and instead asked if he could play Ned Weeks, The Normal Heart's fiery AIDS activist hero who is essentially a stand-in for Kramer himself.
"I wanted to be involved, but I didn't want to direct it," said Cromer, mentioning that he wanted to take a breather from directing, but still continue working in the theater by playing one of his dream roles. "Sometimes you need to look at things another way to get refreshed."
Cromer just assumed that TimeLine associate artistic director Nick Bowling would direct, and was more than happy when that turned out to be case. Both Cromer and Bowling cited the 2011 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of The Normal Heart as a production that showed that the play was not only a historical time capsule of the horror of the unfolding AIDS crisis, but also a modern classic that transcended the immediacy of the health emergency that spawned its creation.
"I was so taken by the resonance that it has for today's gay community and what struck me was two things: What Larry Kramer is suggesting in a way that it took the plague of AIDS to help bring our gay community together to a point to rally behind something that helped move us forward to where we are today," said Bowling when asked about his reaction to seeing The Normal Heart on Broadway. "AIDS not only destroyed us in many ways as a community, but also gave us purpose and a direction. I also found Larry Kramer's brutal examination of the outside world's view of gays and homosexuals as well as a brutal view of the internal gay population and community. ... I love it that he looks as hard inside as he does outside."
Kramer is famous for never pulling punches and laying everything out on the table. Of course, this has often caused Kramer to be ostracized by members of his own community.
Kramer has incurred the wrath not only of the New York nonprofit Gay Men's Health Crisis, which he helped to found before going more politically radical with co-founding ACT UP, but also of angry Barbra Streisand fans when he recently blamed her for sitting on the film rights to The Normal Heart for two decades ( Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy is currently working on a TV-movie version set to be released in 2014 ).
"[The Normal Heart] is a story that feels important right now for the reasons that it's history that is slowly being forgotten or wiped out since it's before the time of many young gay men that were born after the '80s," said Bowling, citing the dispiriting fact that new HIV-infections are rising among gay youth. "AIDS to them is some sort of myth or lore, and this play makes it very real and to begin to understand and feel what these guys were going through in the early '80s when it was first being discovered—and also seeing somebody respond to it that is heroic."
Cromer has corresponded directly with Kramer about The Normal Heart and also spent an afternoon with him. One thing that surprised Cromer was how Kramer quietly and casually admitted to being a shy person.
"It made me notice that he had no plans toward activism or any particular interest in activism," Cromer said. "It's only in the emergency that woke up some fighter in him that got him going and that is probably also is the case of people who find a mission... You don't necessarily choose your mission, your mission chooses you."
Cromer has acted before, notably as the Stage Manager in Our Town. Cromer is also set to make his Broadway acting debut in a forthcoming revival of A Raisin in the Sun opposite such stars as Denzel Washington and Diahann Carroll.
Yet Cromer admits that he's currently just trying to keep up with his talented Normal Heart co-stars like Patrick Andrews who portrays Ned's lover Felix Turner and Mary Beth Fisher who plays Dr. Emma Brookner. There's also the importance of doing honor to Kramer's legacy with AIDS activism and LGBT rights by convincingly playing Ned Weeks for TimeLine.
"I'm not trying to be falsely modest," Cromer said. "I'm just an actor, and the accomplishment of the writer and of the character—Larry and Ned—is so giant. And it is so much more than I'm ever going to accomplish in my life or would have the balls to accomplish... I mean we're all doing this important cultural thing that matters, but it's not as important as saving people's lives. We're just trying to honor that."
TimeLine Theatre's The Normal Heart runs in previews Saturday, Oct. 26, through Wednesday, Oct. 31, with an official press opening night at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1. Regular performances go through Sunday, Dec. 22, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays ( also 4 p.m. on Nov. 29 ), 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays ( no show Nov. 28 ). The Normal Heart is performed at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. Tickets are $24 for previews and $27-$50 during the regular run. Call 773-327-5252 or visit www.timelinetheatre.com or www.stage773.com .
New Pride plays
Pride Films and Plays continues its mission of fostering and presenting new LGBT works with two new play readings, both staged in pay-what-you-can performances at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave.
First up is Lachlan Philpott's drama Bison, which sounds like a critical examination of the herd-like behavior of gay men when it comes to risky sex and finding the elusive "right one." Bison will be staged at 8 p.m. Wed., Oct. 23, and features direction by Jude Hansen and a cast including Alexander St. John, AK Miller and Derek Van Barham.
Following Bison is Topher Payne's Angry Fags, which is described as "an Oscar Wilde-meets-Fight Club fever dream about how good ideas go bad, with fascinating forays into American politics, bomb building, and pistachios." Angry Fags is staged at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, and features direction by Derek Van Barham with a cast featuring Nelson Rodriguez, Kevin Webb, Jude Hansen, Alexander St. John, David Besky, Michelle McKenzie-Voigt and Joan McGrath.
For more information, visit www.pridefilmsandplays.com .
