'The Normal Heart' Movingly Captures the Fight Against AIDS, Then and Now

I recently had the great pleasure of seeing a preview of the new Broadway revival of Larry Kramer's challenging and controversial play, The Normal Heart, which opened to the public this week. The Normal Heart tells the harrowing and inspirational true story of a group of gay men in New York City who come together in the early 1980s to found the organization, Gay Men's Health Crisis, and fought largely unsympathetic political and media powers for funding and attention to address the burgeoning AIDS epidemic in America.

Back in 1985, Larry's extraordinary play tackled the difficult topic of AIDS when very few people were willing to speak out about an escalating public health crisis. Scientists were still searching for effective treatments, AIDS wards were full of dying people, and many politicians were more interested in blaming the sick for their illness than in finding solutions and funding preventions. The play helped to galvanize the gay community, inspiring many capable people to step forward and become a new generation of activists and community leaders.

So, what do we have to learn from a nearly 30-year-old play about the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic? Fortunately, by giving us a window back into those dark times, Larry's play shows us how far we have come in many aspects of addressing this now global epidemic. Thanks to artists like Larry, advocates like Sir Elton John, and the late Dame Elizabeth Taylor, and countless people in and out of power who chose to step forward and speak out, we have made great strides in terms of the public perception of HIV/AIDS. Scientific research has produced an arsenal of lifesaving treatments helping many people live longer, healthier lives despite their HIV infection. Organizations like the Elton John AIDS Foundation and its grantees are helping to bring the latest in HIV prevention methods, education, and treatments into under-served communities across the U.S. and the developing world.

However, while it is true that a great deal of progress has been made, it is nevertheless tremendously shocking just how much hasn't changed -- making The Normal Heart as timely today as it was in 1985. In fact, Larry Kramer was very much ahead of his time in artfully communicating the most insidious aspects of the epidemic. Many of the issues presented in the play remain hot button topics today. For instance, in addition to the AIDS crisis, the play also tackles the issues of same sex marriage and health care reform.

More importantly, even after more than 25 years of HIV prevention and public education efforts, stigma and prejudice against people living with HIV/AIDS still prevent progress in reducing the incidence of HIV infection. The Elton John AIDS Foundation and other organizations devoted to HIV prevention share a deep frustration over the mounting numbers of new infections -- around 56,000 in the U.S. every year -- especially when polls show that fewer and fewer Americans regard HIV/AIDS as a significant public health concern. Just like the early years of the epidemic, complacency and a lack of urgency about HIV/AIDS, both in the media and in the general public, are quietly and literally killing us.

It is vital that younger generations understand the history of the HIV/AIDS movement -- how dire things really were in the early 1980s, how progress was made, and what remains to be done. "The Normal Heart" dramatizes history in a way that creates a visceral connection to the early days of the AIDS epidemic in America. It is sure to inspire today's youth to get involved just as it did 25 years ago.

Aside from being a beautiful performance of a milestone play, this new production of The Normal Heart is a potent reminder of where we've been and where we need to go in the fight against AIDS. This is achieved with the help of a truly extraordinary cast. Ellen Barkin brings all of the magnetism, commitment, and courage she has displayed in her film roles to the Broadway stage. Joe Mantello gives a performance that transports the audience to another time and place. Under the co-direction of George C. Wolfe and Joel Grey, this production powerfully connects theatergoers to the boiling cauldron of issues that emerged at the onset of the AIDS crisis and that continue to challenge us today.

On behalf of all those who are deeply committed to reducing stigma and reversing the AIDS epidemic in the US and around the world, I am profoundly grateful to Larry Kramer and the producers of The Normal Heart for bringing this important work back to the stage. I encourage everyone to see and support this courageous play.

 

Follow David Furnish on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EJAFORG

Comments

[thoreau101]

12:31 AM on 05/02/2011

This reads like a commercial for the EJ Foundation. Excuse me , the Sir EJ Foundation.

[quisp65]

07:50 PM on 05/01/2011

I remember this movement a bit differently. The movement began with claims of discrimination and a lot of the complaints were rightly justified. However funding for treatment of the disease increased dramatically even after it's funds exceeded those of other conditions when factors took into account the amount of people dying or sick for each condition. The media helped push a fallacy that a great epidemic of heterosexuals were getting the disease when later it was discovered nothing of the sort happened. Though I guess I should congratulate these groups for being so successful for the push for funding because it was a great successful funding drive I do not share the same enthusiasm about their call that they were held greatly held back due to discrimination.

[jaxstl]

09:10 PM on 05/01/2011

Wow spoken like someone who didn't attend a funeral a month for 3 years. Over a 100,000 people had died before the President even mentioned it's name, unlike Legionaries Disease a few year previously affect relatively few people but the government mobilized the CDC and NIH. So forgive me if I don't share your cynicism and please tell African American woman that this is not a heterosexual epidemic.

[quisp65]

10:28 PM on 05/01/2011

Sorry for the loses, but again the HIV funding movement did well in its drive to get funds from the government and the public. No harm of informing people they weren't quite the victims they have played themselves out to be.

[thoreau101]

12:32 AM on 05/02/2011

"I do not share the same enthusiasm about their call that they were held greatly held back due to discrimina­tion."

You are out of your mind.

[BlueZoo]

06:55 PM on 05/01/2011

I am so glad to see "The Normal Heart" has been updated and is being performed again. We need more and more of these types of plays and films, not less. Just yesterday, I was speaking with a dear gay friend and his partner who were very concerned about an acquaintance of theirs. The man is in his late-20s and, despite his partner having died from AIDS, he is still living a lifestyle of multiple partners, drug and alcohol binges that impair his judgment, etc. Believing you are young, handsome and invisible does not mean you will not get AIDS and believing the retro viral drug cocktails will save you is equally irresponsible. There is still NO CURE and this fact needs to be driven home in a big way once again, as it appears we have come to some sort of wide belief that there is a cure and that, even if you get AIDS, you can live to a ripe old age with the drug cocktails. The latter part of that is true but it isn't true for everyone and you are risking your life betting it is!

[DougSeelye]

05:29 PM on 05/01/2011

Please read/

[raker]

04:02 PM on 05/01/2011

I saw The Normal Heart years ago and loved it. I love its depiction of dedication and compassion among gay people. One of the awful memes about AIDS in the 80s was that lovers abandoned newly-diagnosed lovers left and right because of fear or squeamishness or immaturity. But The Normal Heart tells a truer story of friends and lovers fighting to protect one another. Everyone I knew in that situation was caring and compassionate and devoted to their partners. People volunteered at AIDS service organizations before they knew someone who was sick—it didn't take their being intimately affected for them to take action to help others. I admire that very much.

[juna]

03:58 PM on 05/01/2011

Oops, sorry! I posted to the wrong blog. This article has nothing to do with eating fish.

[MJinCanada]

12:53 AM on 05/02/2011

I pulled that trick last week. It's rather easy to do if you switch stories to reply to someone's response to you.

[juna]

03:56 PM on 05/01/2011

I am wondering about radioactivity in fish. We are hearing no more news about the nuclear plants in Japan, but I don't think that means the radioactive pollution has stopped. The last time I heard, a couple of weeks ago, many millions of gallons of radioactive water were being poured into the Pacific Ocean. Wouldn't it be a logical conclusion that there is now contamination?

[dsinla]

11:45 AM on 05/01/2011

View the Award winning documentary "House of Numbers" to see why questions about this must be raised, and why deeper issues about HIV and AIDS need to be discussed. Lives are at risk. This is the first documentary,with the worlds
foremost authorities, that highlights the fundamental problems with HIV
testing, science, and statistics. It sheds new light on a misunderstood
phenomenon for which there is still no cure. GO to http://bit.ly/fhUxaJ - bit.ly/gogKLZ to see the trailer.

[TheGripester]

11:18 PM on 04/30/2011

For those of us who can't see this play due to not living in New York, I recommend watching "Longtim Companion." That is a brilliant, moving testament to the generation that was struck down in their prime by AIDS.

[Dan Dolan]

12:41 PM on 05/02/2011

Angels in America. Philadelphia. Rent. And the Band Played on. All great whether reading or watching.

[TheGripester]

02:16 PM on 05/02/2011

Of course, those are all excellent films. Yet Longtime Companion is the most poignant of them all, in my opinion, because it shows how a community was devastated, bit by bit, as brilliant young men were erased one by one, and those who remained bore an ever widening burden of sorrow. It doesn't have supernatural beings, or top movie stars, or any political agenda. It's just a great film made beautifully by great actors and master craftsmen.

[traveler291]

09:01 PM on 04/30/2011

i played the role of bruce niles in the nation's first community theater presentation of the play at "actor's theater"in 1987 in grand rapids, mi.

it was the most intense and rewarding experience i had on stage. many members of the audience were equally moved. this is "don't miss" theater.

to the cast and crew, break a leg and touch all the normal hearts.

[Euglena Vorticella]

03:27 PM on 04/30/2011

my personal story, if anyone wants to hear. In 1983 or 1984, a TV show called "An Early Frost" appeared,. I held my wonderful, loving, doting lover's hand, and said "aren't we lucky we don't have to worry about that?" (we had met long before aids, and we were monogamous.) In 1986 he got sick, and died in 11 weeks. The FIRST person I knew to get it........ seems ONLY I was monogamous. To ALL, never be so naive and trusting as I was. I am fine, by the way, still neg after all these years. (Alas, still too trusting!)

[Contact1972]

03:39 PM on 04/30/2011

I remember watching 'An Early Frost'. It was certainly groudbreaking. I'm sorry for your loss.

[Contact1972]

03:40 PM on 04/30/2011

I meant groundbreaking.