TheaterMania - 26/June/2012

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SPECIAL REPORT: Four Capital Ideas For Theatergoers
Reviews of First You Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Music Man and The Normal Heart.

By Brian Scott Lipton • Jun 26, 2012 • Washington, DC

Patricia Wettig and Patrick Breen

inThe Normal Heart

(© Scott Suchman)

With Independence Day just around the corner, a trip to our nation's capitol is certainly in order. And in addition to checking out the Smithsonian, the Capitol, or the Lincoln Memorial, visitors to (or residents of) Washington, D.C. have four fine theatrical options to add to their to-do list.

The political and the personal collide with devastating effect in Larry Kramer's powerful and passionate 1985 play, The Normal Heart, about the early years of the AIDS crisis, now launching its national tour at Arena Stage. Part history lesson, part cautionary tale, and part call to continuing action, this thinly disguised autobiographical work focuses on the efforts of crusading journalist Ned Weeks (Patrick Breen) to get New York's gay community -- as well as its government and media -- to pay attention to the mysterious disease that is rapidly claiming the lives of gay men.

Ned is sparked into his quest by no-nonsense, paraplegic physician Emma Brookner (Patricia Wettig), but Ned's pleas to having his gay brethren to follow her exhortation to stop having sex altogether -- as well as his hair-trigger temper -- eventually alienates him from fellow activists Bruce Niles (Nick Mennell), Mickey Marcus (an excellent Michael Berresse), and Tommy Boatwright (the very fine Christopher J. Hanke), and even his beloved older brother, Ben (John Procaccino). His dedication to the cause is only intensified when his lover, New York Times reporter Felix Turner (Luke MacFarlane), contracts the mysterious, life-threatening illness.

While the entire cast -- most notably, Breen, MacFarlane, and Wettig -- gives highly committed and extremely intelligent performances, director George C. Wolfe or restaging director Leah C. Gardiner has turned the intensity level down a bit from the Tony Award-winning Broadway production -- which is probably a conscious choice to accommodate the intimate Kreeger Theatre. But Kramer's play is meant to be a loud polemic, and the occasional subtleness of these performances slightly lessens the great work's impact.

The Georgetowner - 25/June/2012

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'Normal Heart': Gripping Passion at Arena

By Gary Tischler | June 25th, 2012 |

Patricia Wettig as Dr. Emma Brookner and Patrick Breen as Ned Weeks in The Normal Heart at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater through July 29.

Patricia Wettig as Dr. Emma Brookner and Patrick Breen as Ned Weeks in The Normal Heart at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater through July 29.

People forget. Larry Kramer won’t let you.
There was a time in the early 1980s when gay men all over the country were dying at an alarmingly increasing rate of an unidentified disease which killed their immune system and no one seemed to notice.

Kramer, a gay writer and activist, noticed, because people he knew died, because the disease, invisible, undiagnosed, unresearched seemed to be all around him in New York. He wanted others—including his peers in the gay community who were living in what they thought was a free-love golden age—to stand up and take action.

In 1985, he wrote a play called “The Normal Heart,” which debuted on Broadway and shocked the world in its chronicle of the early fight against AIDS, when the disease did not have a name and went unrecognized, devastating the gay community, but also already spreading outward.

It told the story of a Kramer stand-in, an abrasive writer named Ned Weeks and his friends, and his battle to make the world, the government, gays themselves see what was happening. Weeks is a hyperbolist, a man with apocalyptic tendencies, urgent, impolite, impolitic, insensitive, passionate and complete out of control and in focus in his crusade. “The Normal Heart” is the story of his battle, with and against his friends, including a closeted gay named Bruce, who is a banker and former Green Beret who wants to work from the inside. There’s the embattled, ferocious doctor named Emma Brookner who first notices the diseases and some of its symptons, there’s Ned’s straight brother who tries reluctantly to help, there’s Felix Turner, a New York Times fashion writer who becomes Weeks’s lover and various activists, officials and victims to-be.

In 1985, the play startled New York and the country’s audiences with its hard-driving, polemical and super-charged, dramatic style and also moved them.

Today, after millions of deaths, and almost 30 years later, a new production of “The Normal Heart” at Arena Stage (and after a critically acclaimed revival in New York ) has astonishing power. It seems as fresh as it was in its debut, perhaps even more so because time has worked its insidious ways by making people, if not forget, allow themselves a considerable distance from what remains a worldwide crisis.

The play—directed by George C. Wolfe—retains its power and gains some, too. You shouldn’t be surprised if you notice, especially in the emotionally charged second act, that people around you are wiping away tears or sobbing, or for that matter, if you are, too. Mind you, there is not an ounce of sentimentality in this play: it’s as clean as a knife to the heart. Kramer has taken care not to create martyrs or characters who are types. That unaffected uniqueness shows through especially with Weeks, who on the surface is the least likely person to lead a crusade, he’s loud, driven, he hurts people without trying, and he has a desperate need for love. “The Normal Heart” is always about people in a moment of extreme crisis — they fight, they battle, they cling to each other, and they yell and shout and weep and cry out.

If need screams at government officials for not caring, Weeks is tough on himself and the gay community. “We’ve got to stop thinking we’re just about sex. We’re Michelangelo, we’re DaVinci, we’re Socrates and Alexander the Great, we’re Keynes and Porter,” he says. “. . . And we’ve got to stop doing this [casual sex]. We’re killing ourselves.”

No one thanks him for his observations.

Weeks display a combative style. Confronted with the prospect of love, however, he becomes a puppy who thinks he doesn’t deserve his lover.

This production never lets up and when the disease draws closer, it grabs you by the throat and shakes you up—or in the street vernacular—messes you up. Bruce’s lover dies and he recounts a harrowing experience to take him home to Arizona, the doctor unleashes a jeremiad against the government and medical community and Weeks’s lover becomes ill.

Our hearts swell and crack in those moments. No one, I think, at that point can feel separate from the stage and the people on it.

In a host of outstanding performances, Patrick Breen as the combative, bristling, enraged and enraging Weeks is so kinetic that you start to feel toward him exactly as his friends and allies do. Luke MacFarlane as Turner has—like the character must—charm to burn until the bitter end when he himself is consumed. Patricia Wettig—of television's “Brothers & Sisters” and “Thirtysomething” fame among many credits—gives a blunt, brave coating to the doctor, in a wheelchair for most of her life because of polio—and her outburst in the second act inevitably draws cheers.

The play is performed against a background of a list of victims' names and headlines, which grows during the course of the two-and-a-half hour run—I spotted without trying Liberace’s name. Suddenly, you remember where you were and where you are.

“I’m exhausted,” a woman walking out said to her husband. “We all are, honey,” he said.

Outside, there are portions of the AIDS quilt, which will also be on view in part at the Kennedy Center and will form a key part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival this year. Outside, they hand you a missive from Kramer, which gives an update on the fight against AIDs.

People forget. We’re lucky that Kramer hasn’t.

“The Normal Heart” will run at Arena’ Stage's Kreeger Theatre through July 29.

Patrick Breen as Ned Weeks and Luke MacFarlane as Felix Turner in The Normal Heart at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater through July 29. Photo by Scott Suchman (Scott Suchman.)

Tom Berklund as Grady, Christopher J. Hanke as Tommy Boatwright, Michael Berresse as Mickey Marcus and Nick Mennell as Bruce Niles in The Normal Heart at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Th (Scott Suchman.)

The cast of The Normal Heart at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater through July 29. (Scott Suchman.)

NY1 - 22/June/2012

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06/22/2012 08:00 PM
Washington's Arena Stage Always Ready To Tell A Story
By: Frank DiLella

NY1 VIDEO: The Tony Award winning regional theatre Arena Stage - located in Washington D.C. - has been producing first-class work since it opened its doors back in 1950.

Washington blade - 21/June/2012

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arts & entertainment, dc agenda, theater agenda
‘Heart’ of the matter
June 21, 2012 |
By Patrick Folliard on June 21, 2012

‘The Normal Heart’
Through July 29
Arena Stage
1101 6th Street, SW
$40-$94
202-488-3300
arenastage.org

Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” is aging well, breathtakingly so. This was proved last year on Broadway and it’s being demonstrated again with a powerfully searing production now playing at Arena Stage.

When Kramer’s biographical take on the early days of the AIDS crisis premiered in New York in 1985, gay men were dying in large numbers and then-President Reagan had yet to utter the word “AIDS” publicly, so not surprisingly the gay playwright’s words reportedly rang angry and alarmed. Today, Arena’s stripped-down and fast-paced revival helmed by gay director George C. Wolfe (who co-staged the Tony-winning Broadway version) still conveys the fury and fear while embracing the empathy and sadness also found in Kramer’s stunning play.

Kramer’s script wastes no time in establishing the horror of the situation. Seated in their doctor’s waiting room (circa 1981 Manhattan), several gay men tensely discuss the still nameless plague that is making them ill and killing their friends. They talk early symptoms (swollen glands, night sweats, fatigue), treatment (almost nothing) and chances of survival (slim). As one patient exits the office revealing a youthful face jarringly marred by Kaposi sarcoma lesions, another enters collapsing from the effects of a violent seizure. The plague is on and it’s going to get worse.

The action focuses on irascible but likeable writer/activist Ned Weeks, a Kramer stand-in superbly played with nuance and great heart by Patrick Been. After several informational meetings and an examination with Dr. Brookner (Patricia Wettig), a prickly physician whose patients include many of the epidemics’ first victims, Ned is convinced that gay men will need to save themselves. He suspects the disease is sexually transmitted.

Determined to rally gays to action, Ned creates an advocacy group similar to Gay Men’s Health Crisis (co-founded by Kramer), and manages to grow the organization despite a lack of support from closeted New York City Mayor Ed Koch and a largely apathetic gay community. Eventually, Ned’s co-members, wrongly but understandably, reject his increasingly angry style as well as his promotion of total abstinence (the concept of safe sex would come later). “We just feel that you can’t tell people how to live,” says Bruce (Nick Mennell), one of the organization’s more popular members. Ned is forced out.

More than a tirade, “The Normal Heart” is also an absorbing family drama. Ned has the love and support of his hotshot lawyer brother played by John Procaccino, but yearns for his total acceptance. It’s also a medical mystery and quite strikingly, a sweet love story. While the plague rages, Ned unexpectedly finds love with Felix, a New York Times style writer beautifully played by handsome gay actor Luke Macfarlane. He’s Ned’s first serious lover.

In the second act when Felix is diagnosed with the deadly virus, he warns Ned that things will become messy, and indeed they do. Messy and heartbreaking, as evidenced by the ongoing sniffles and stifled sobs heard throughout Arena’s Kreeger Theatre.

Plague weary, the central characters finally crack in a series of emotionally raw monologues. Beleaguered activist Mickey (subtly played by Michael Berresse) considers suicide; the typically reserved Dr. Brookner rails against the smug government doctor who refuses her application for a grant; conservative Bruce, a bank V.P. and former Green Beret, dissolves to tears explaining his late lover’s humiliating death; and Ned fiercely expresses his disappointment with the gay community’s inadequate early response to the epidemic.

David Rockwell’s stark set is quietly monumental: White walls embossed with AIDS-related words and phrases (also white) which — depending on the David Weiner’s smart lighting — can or cannot be seen in relief. Also, various locale descriptions and, most affectively, the names of actual AIDS victims are projected on to the set. As the play progresses, these projected names grow exponentially.

The terrific cast also includes Christopher J. Hanke as Tommy Boatwright, a saucy but caring southerner; Jon Levenson as the mayor’s imperious aide de camp; local actor Chris Dinolfo is the young patient with K.S; and Tom Berklund plays Grady, a dim but well-built volunteer.

For Kramer, who learned he was HIV-positive in 1988, “The Normal Heart” might simply serve as proof that he was right all along, but that’s antithetical to his fighting spirit. At Arena, leaflets penned by Kramer decrying the un-won global war on AIDS are distributed to audience members as they leave. The battle continues

Early outrage over AIDS crisis reaches DC stage

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Early outrage over AIDS crisis reaches DC stage

By BRETT ZONGKER — Jun. 15 6:45 AM EDT

Actors Patrick Breen, left, who plays Ned, and Luke MacFarlane, from the tv show "Brothers &
Sisters," who plays Ned's partner, Felix, pose for a photograph at Arena Stage in Washington, on
Tuesday, June 5, 2012. The actor's are featured in Larry Kramer's historic play, "The Normal
Heart," which won the Tony Award in 2011 for best play revival, at Arena Stage. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Before there was a test, before it had a name and before there was any way to know if AIDS was spread through the air, touch or bodily fluids, there was confusion and denial.

Most politicians and policy makers in the 1980s didn't want to talk about a killer disease that seemed to be affecting gay men. Now 30 years later, the nation's capital is getting its first look at a story recalling those early days of the AIDS crisis and the outrage that turned a group of gay men into activists pushing for information and recognition of the disease.

While Washington has a role in the story, Larry Kramer's prescient 1985 play, "The Normal Heart," is just now being staged here for the first time. The production, fresh from Broadway, coincides with an international AIDS conference that's returning to the U.S. this summer and is expected to draw 20,000 attendees from around the world.

Arena Stage is producing the show, which won the 2011 Tony Award for best revival on Broadway. The new production starring Patrick Breen and Luke MacFarlane of TV's "Brothers & Sisters," runs through July 29 before the show moves to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater.

The story promises to find an even larger audience in the months and years to come with a planned movie from "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy starring Mark Ruffalo and Julia Roberts.

While set in New York, Washington is the most important city for the play to be seen, as the power center for politics and health policy, Kramer told The Associated Press.

In the play, his ranting alter ego is Ned Weeks who bemoans New York Mayor Ed Koch's apathy, the reluctance of The New York Times to write about AIDS and the refusal of President Ronald Reagan to acknowledge the disease. He also condemns gays for refusing to change their sexual behavior when it began to prove deadly.

Thirty years after Kramer's story, his message is the same, though the audience may have changed. AIDS infection rates continue to rise.

"It's still a plague, it's still raging all over the world, and there's still nobody paying attention to it on an official level," Kramer said, noting the death toll has risen from the hundreds in the early 80s to tens of millions. "Everything in the play came true. So it's now a history play."

The story unfolds in a New York doctor's office in 1981 — before an AIDS epidemic had been declared.

Patients line up to see if they're showing any symptoms. Dr. Emma Brookner, played by Patricia Wettig of TV's "Thirty Something" and "Brothers & Sisters," delivers her best guesses and tough love to counsel patients.

"All I know is this disease is the most insidious killer I've ever seen ...and I think we're seeing only the tip of the iceberg," Emma tells Weeks, urging him to take action.

"Tell gay men to stop having sex," she says.

Weeks retorts: "Do you realize that you are talking about millions of men who have singled out promiscuity to be their principle political agenda?"

Wettig told the AP she wanted to join the cast after seeing "Heart" on Broadway, living in New York in the 1980s and knowing people who died. For her, the story now has "more potency, more power." She said the nation seems ready to hear the story and more people feel a personal connection.

In the play, Weeks, like Kramer, went on to co-found the activist and support group Gay Men's Health Crisis to push politicians, doctors and the media to take AIDS seriously.

Breen, 51, who plays the lead role, said Kramer's play was a wakeup call in 1985 for some of his own friends and may have saved their lives. Many cast members also know friends who died. Each contributed names of people who were lost to be projected among thousands of other names as part of a memorial wall at the play's ending.

"In a way, we are performing in their honor," Breen said. "It becomes the Vietnam Memorial, like any memorial in D.C."

MacFarlane, 32, who broke network television ground on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters" as part of a gay couple who marry and adopt a daughter, said he was struck by how AIDS pushed the gay rights movement to evolve.

"Historically, there seems to have been a shift where gay men learned to love each other in a different way, to take care of each other," he said.

In "The Normal Heart" he plays Felix, who is Weeks' dying lover. When he finds out he's infected, there's still confusion about how the disease is spread or whether he could infect his partner.

"Can we kiss?" Felix asks his doctor.

"I don't know," she says back.

The story also looked ahead to the prospect of gay marriage at a time when that wasn't even on the table, Breen said. Still, Kramer argues for bigger goals and equal rights to help fight the AIDS crisis.

While the District of Columbia is among a handful of states that have since legalized same-sex marriage, "The Normal Heart" is a timely story for Washington. The capital remains a city with one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates.

Kramer and the show's producers have invited President Barack Obama and the first lady to see the play at Arena Stage.

"Now that he's come out for gay marriage, he doesn't lose any political capital by coming to see this," the 76-year-old writer and activist said. "He might even gain a little more."

The theater is displaying sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in its lobby with a small exhibit on AIDS history from the Smithsonian. It's also hosting community discussions with experts and health professionals each Sunday. And as audiences depart the theater after the show, a letter from Kramer is handed out, detailing the ongoing epidemic.

Broadway producer Daryl Roth shepherded the production to Washington after its award-winning Broadway run when she heard of the world AIDS conference. Roth said she knew it would be the "perfect time" for theater that holds a mirror up to society with a story that still resonates.

"There are a lot of people that — here's a big news flash — that are still homophobic," she said. "And you know, people came to see this play, and I know minds were changed."

___
Arena Stage: http://www.arenastage.org/
___

Playbill.com - 08/Jun/2012

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Patricia Wettig, Patrick Breen, Luke MacFarlane, Christopher J. Hanke Explore The Normal Heart at Arena Stage

By Andrew Gans
08 Jun 2012

Patrick Breen
Photo by Monica Simoes

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater presents the 2011 Tony Award-winning production of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, directed by Tony winner George C. Wolfe, beginning June 8.
Performances of the award-winning drama will continue through July 29 in the Kreeger Theatre. Opening night is June 14.

Patrick Breen, who played Mickey Marcus in the Broadway production, now heads the cast as AIDS activist Ned Weeks, the role played on Broadway by Tony winner Joe Mantello. "Brothers and Sisters" star Luke Macfarlane, who played Craig Donner/Grady on Broadway, is Felix Turner.

The cast also features How to Succeed's Christopher J. Hanke as Tommy Boatwright, Patricia Wettig (Holly Harper on ABC’s "Brothers & Sisters," FOX's "Prison Break") as Dr. Emma Brookner, Tom Berklund (Broadway's The Addams Family) as Craig Donner/Grady, Michael Berresse (Broadway's A Chorus Line) as Mickey Marcus, Chris Dinolfo (Round House Theatre's Next Fall) as David, Jon Levenson (understudy for Broadway's The Normal Heart) as Hiram Keebler/Examining Doctor, Nick Mennell (Broadway’s A Free Man of Color) as Bruce Niles and John Procaccino (Lincoln Center Theater's Blood and Gifts) as Ben Weeks.

"Last year when we did the revival on Broadway it was thrilling to see critics rediscover what a great American play The Normal Heart is, and to see audiences, young and old, respond with such emotion and ferocity to the story," said director Wolfe in a previous statement. "I'm so excited to be a part of bringing Larry's astonishing, funny, moving play to DC and to The Arena."

"I consider Washington my hometown and it's been exceedingly upsetting to me that it’s taken so long for The Normal Heart to be professionally produced there and doubly exciting that Arena is doing it at last," added playwright Kramer. "This is the most important city for this play. I hope Washington will respond to it as it finally joins with the many productions it's had all over the world."

Read the recent Playbill magazine interview with Kramer.

Larry Kramer
photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The Normal Heart reunites Broadway design team members, including set designer David Rockwell, costume designer Martin Pakledinaz, lighting designer David Weiner, sound designer/original music composer David Van Tieghem and projections designer by Batwin & Robin. Joining the creative team are restaging director Leah C. Gardiner, stage manager Amber Dickerson and assistant stage manager Kurt Hall.

The story of a city in denial, The Normal Heart, press note state, "unfolds like a real-life political thriller—as a tight-knit group of friends refuses to let doctors, politicians and the press bury the truth of an unspoken epidemic behind a wall of silence. A quarter-century after it was written, this outrageous, unflinching and totally unforgettable look at the politics of New York during the AIDS crisis remains one of the theater's most powerful evenings ever."

The Normal Heart played a limited, sold-out engagement on Broadway last season at the John Golden Theatre and was produced by Daryl Roth, Paul Boskind and Martian Entertainment in association with Gregory Rae and Jayne Baron Sherman/Alexander Fraser.

(San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater will open its 2012-13 season with Normal Heart, directed by five-time Tony Award winner Wolfe. Performances are scheduled for Sept. 13-Oct. 7 at the American Conservatory Theater. Casting will be announced at a later date.)

For ticketinformation visit arenastage.org.

Read the 2011 Playbill Brief Encounter interview with director George C. Wolfe.

The cast of The Normal Heart at Arena Stage
photo by Carol Rosegg

Queerty - 03/June/2012

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PHOTOS: Luke Macfarlane In The, Ahem, Short Film “Erection”


Today’s object of desire is Brothers and Sisters’ Luke Macfarlane (above) in ”Erection,” a new erotic short from Tannaz Hazemi and James Grimaldi that’s making the festival circuit. In it, the 32-year-old Canadian plays Dean, a straight guy having performance issues with his girlfriend.

We certainly wouldn’t have any with Mr. Macfarlane here. Look for “Erection” at a film festival near you.

Source: Square Hippies

By:           Dan Avery
On:           Jun 3, 2012