The Normal Heart Tickets : The Characters Often Speak In The Same Bland Journalistic Voice

The Normal Heart is a semi-autobiographical play by Larry Kramer. It focuses on the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the gay Jewish founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group.

Ned prefers loud public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends, and closeted lover Felix Turner, none of whom are prepared to throw themselves into the media spotlight. Their differences of opinion lead to frequent arguments that threaten to undermine their mutual goal.

In his review in The New York Times, Frank Rich observed, "In this fiercely polemical drama ... the playwright starts off angry, soon gets furious and then skyrockets into sheer rage. Although Mr. Kramer's theatrical talents are not always as highly developed as his conscience, there can be little doubt that The Normal Heart is the most outspoken play around - or that it speaks up about a subject that justifies its author's unflagging, at times even hysterical, sense of urgency.

Mr. Kramer has few good words to say about Mayor Koch, various prominent medical organizations, The New York Times or, for that matter, most of the leadership of an unnamed organization apparently patterned after the Gay Men's Health Crisis.

Some of the author's specific accusations are questionable, and, needless to say, we often hear only one side of inflammatory debates. But there are also occasions when the stage seethes with the conflict of impassioned, literally life-and-death argument.

The writing's pamphleteering tone is accentuated by Mr. Kramer's insistence on repetition - nearly every scene seems to end twice - and on regurgitating facts and figures in lengthy tirades. Some of the supporting players ... are too flatly written to emerge as more than thematic or narrative pawns.

The characters often speak in the same bland journalistic voice - so much so that lines could be reassigned from one to another without the audience detecting the difference. If these drawbacks ... blunt the play's effectiveness, there are still many powerful vignettes sprinkled throughout."

Jack Kroll of Newsweek called it "extraordinary" and added, "It is bracing and exciting to hear so much passion and intelligence. Kramer produces a cross fire of life-and-death energies that create a fierce and moving human drama." In the New York Daily News, Liz Smith said, "An astounding drama . . . a damning indictment of a nation in the middle of an epidemic with its head in the sand.

It will make your hair stand on end even as the tears spurt from your eyes." Rex Reed stated, "No one who cares about the future of the human race can afford to miss The Normal Heart," while director Harold Prince commented, "I haven't been this involved - upset - in too damn long. Kramer honors us with this stormy, articulate theatrical work."

On the day The Normal Heart opened, a spokesman for The New York Times addressed statements in the play about the newspaper's failure to give the disease adequate coverage. He said that as soon as The Times became aware of AIDS, it assigned a member of the science staff to cover the story, and his article appeared on July 3, 1981, making The Times "one of the first - if not the first - national news media to alert the public to the scientific recognition and spread of the disease."

He also cited a later full-length report in The New York Times Magazine about recent discoveries made by researchers. When asked about his negative portrayal in The Normal Heart, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch said through a spokesman, "I haven't seen the play. But I hope it's as good as As Is, which is superb."

In 2000, the Royal National Theatre named The Normal Heart one of the 100 greatest plays of the 20th century.In his 2004 book, How to Do the History of Homosexuality, David Halperin criticized the character of Ned Weeks for surrendering to "gay chauvinism" and "homosexual essentialism" through "various strategies of elitism and exclusion" when he lists renowned homosexuals he considers part of his culture.