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(1-r) Neil Zevnik, Stephen Rowe, and Donald Berman in The Normal Heart.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

by Scott Jefferson

''ve had a number of confrontations since I "became political" (Native 137). Straight or gay, good or bad, successful or unsuccessful, the most important element of the confrontations has been the issue of facts. Some people wanted the facts, some people needed the facts. Some people had the facts and needed to start facing them.

The first incident began innocently enough. It was a lonely, rainy Saturday afternoon. Rather than remaining sequestered in my apartment, I decided to go to a movie. Thanks to the routine inefficiency of the mass transit system, I arrived in midtown just a few minutes too late for any of the first showings at the movie houses. Since I had an umbrella and the TKTS line was relatively short, I decided to treat myself to something "legit" for a change.

The Normal Heart was available, as were a number of far less challenging entertainments. Due to the reviews, and friends who had commented on its "shattering," "devastating" impact, I had been avoiding Larry Kramer's drama about the AIDS crisis since it had opened in April. Prior to considering becoming "politicalized," I did not go to the theater to be shattered or devastated. I went to see tap dancing, thank you very much. Still, I knew that this play was important, that it should be seen. And I knew it might be closing soon.

middle-aged ladies from Westchester, who were disappointed about everything. (The curtain was delayed, so we had time to chat.) The seats were lousy (they were). No Joel Grey (I pointed out that the current lead, Stephen Rowe, is an excellent actor, whom I had seen a number of times while he was with the Yale Repertory Theater). One lady was concerned that the play might be tedious. I assured her that, from all reports, tedium was not one of the play's problems.

These ladies were a bit weak on facts, and I took the opportunity to fill in the gaps for them. I don't want to suggest that they were totally ignorant about AIDS. I was surprised to find that they had a decent grasp of the

basics-three years old and two years late, but a least a grasp. They also had open minds. (Not all heterosexuals were sired by Norman Podhoertz and weaned on the New York Post.) They were surprised but intrigued to learn that the first AIDS case was not a gay man but a straight female drug abuser. They had not heard in any detail about the African outbreak in the heterosexual population. They did not know about the current statistics regarding the correlation between drug abuse and AIDS. (I didn't try to defend the Mine Shaft to them; this was a matinee crowd, after all.)

All in all, it was a delightful confrontation, although I don't mean to suggest that these

Normal Heart Breaks Public Theater Record Longest-Running Play In 18-Year History

The Normal Heart is now the longestrunning play in the 18-year history of the Public Theater. The December 21 matinee will mark its 300th performance (the closest contender was Tracers, which gave 200 performances.)

Since its April 21 New York debut, Larry Kramer's critically acclaimed drama opened December 11 in Los Angeles, with an all-star cast including Richard Dreyfus, Bruce Davidson, Ben Murphy, and Kathy Bates, and William DeAcutis recreating his role as Tommy Boatwright. The L.A. production is directed by Arvin Brown, who will also mount the play in January at his

I bought a ticket for The Normal Heart. The audience was sparse, old, and uniformly disappointed to discover that Joel Grey is longer in the company. (Even I was a little disappointed.) I sat next to a pair of 26 NEW YORK NATIVE/DECEMBER 23-29, 1985

Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. In addition. The Normal Heart is now being performed by Pioneer Square in Seattle, and Baltimore's Center Stage plans a production for early next year. In March, London's Royal Court Theater will present Martin Sheen in the central role of Ned Weeks, with a supporting cast of British actors and it is likely the play will transfer to the West End. There is even talk of a production in Puerto Rico.

As in New York, The Normal Heart invariably is greeted by moved audiences with extended (and well-deserved) standing ovations. Scott Jefferson

ladies felt confronted by me. Rather, I confronted, again, my old fear of being candidly gay. By the end of the play-which was devastating, shattering, important, and should be seen soon while you have the chance-we were friends. They returned to Westchester with a few more facts than they had come with, and I left with a firmer grasp on my ability to confront and share the facts-which are desvastating, shattering, important, and must be shared.

As vital as it is for the gay community to rally its collective strength to fight the current gay AIDS = death mentality, which threatens to set back or eliminate all the gains we have made since Stonewall, I feel it is equally important to educate the straight population so that they can join us in this fight for basic human (and civil) rights. There's a lot we must do on our own; but, considering who is now in power, there's a lot that realisically we cannot do on our own. Nor should we have to.

Getting the masses, even the masses of gay people, to hear and accept the necessary facts (let alone act on them) is not going to be easy. For every voice with a fact today, there is a louder, and better financed, liar prepared to shout down that fact. These liars are all too familiar to us by now. They pretend to be "Christians," even though they ignore the teaching of their supposed savior in favor of hate-mongering distortions and outright lies. (Christ himself said that we could expect such figures to appear, preaching hate in his name.) They come pretending to be scientists, perverting statistics, or simply lying to promote their personal, unscientific, anti-gay agendas. (Remember, the professionally discredited homophobe Paul Cameron was