Life Lessons in ‘Normal Heart’

IAN SMITH was born and raised in the 1980s in Bangor, Me., a world away from the young gay men of New York City of that era who were among the first to die of complications from AIDS. Mr. Smith, 29, is gay himself, and in Manhattan he has heard stories about some of those men from their friends and lovers who survived. But nothing prepared him for the shock he felt recently seeing “The Normal Heart,” the Broadway drama about the early years of AIDS, which won the Tony Award for best play revival this month.

The fear and terror of the gay characters onstage, Mr. Smith said in an interview outside the theater, was such a sharp contrast to his own experience, in which friends can be casual about using condoms. His eyes still wet from tears, he recalled how one friend recently had a scare and thought he might have contracted H.I.V.

“It was actually kind of frightening, because he was like, ‘Well, at this point, even if I got infected, it’s not the worst thing in the world anymore,’ ” Mr. Smith said. “And you see this play and you’re like, ‘The ’80s seem a long time ago, and yet we’re making the same dumb mistakes.’ ”

If “The Normal Heart” was the playwright Larry Kramer’s war cry against AIDS and apathy during its original Off Broadway run in 1985, the revival is more like a heart-tugging lesson about friendship and love under siege for people who were not alive or aware during that era. In hopes of sharing a slice of gay history that many teachers and textbooks do not impart, the producers of “The Normal Heart” have been sharply discounting tickets to $30 for people under 30 on Thursday nights, and they are now planning a United States tour of the production as well as a run in London.

Daryl Roth, the lead producer, said she decided to try to bring “The Normal Heart” to Broadway during a conversation last fall with the actor David Hyde Pierce, who had attended a staged reading of the play. “David brought two young friends,” she said, “and he told me afterward that the two knew nothing of the history, the legacy of AIDS, the struggles that people had just 30 years ago.

“People have been lulled into believing that because of AIDS drugs the pandemic is over, and AIDS is just another chronic illness. The reality is far different, and here you have a play that doesn’t just bring reality to life, but, I think, also shows how a small group of people can make a difference.”

The play, which runs through July 10, centers on Ned Weeks (a stand-in for Mr. Kramer) and his attempts to rally other gay men and the New York City government to take action against AIDS. Among the many divisive arguments in the work is that gay men should stop having sex — or at least stop being sexually promiscuous — until the disease is isolated, and that gay identity is destructively wrapped up in sexual activity and narcissism rather than in self-acceptance and platonic fellowship with other gay people.

“My hope, then and now, is that people would go away believing that being gay is much, much more than what’s between our legs,” Mr. Kramer said.

Patrick Sullivan, a 21-year-old gay student at Cooper Union who also bought one of the “30 Under 30” tickets, said these debates over gay identity were the most provocative parts of the play for him.

“So much of what gay people talk about is related to the act of sex rather than to love or friendship,” Mr. Sullivan said. “And we can be very self-absorbed, like some of the characters who couldn’t imagine changing their own sexual habits. I mean, I get absorbed sometimes in how hard I have it as a gay person, but then you see this play, and you see how far we’ve come.”

Alexandria Jacobson, a 19-year-old lesbian who does outreach work among high school students on H.I.V. and AIDS issues, found herself thinking about identity issues in a different way. “I was surprised how much stigmas have persisted,” she said, “that people with H.I.V.-AIDS are even now stigmatized. So many gay people are still afraid to tell their families that they are H.I.V. positive. It’s more socially acceptable to be gay now than it was in the time of the play, but some gay people still don’t feel they’re worthy of acceptance if they have H.I.V.-AIDS.”

For others the impact of the play fell squarely on their sexual choices. A few young gay men said that they sometimes had sex without using condoms, saying that it felt better that way, or that they lacked condoms when sex presented itself and they did not want to kill the mood. For all of the play’s dramatic power, they said, it would be overly optimistic to believe that they would always have safe sex as a result of a night at the theater.

“I feel in this lifestyle being safe, there’s only so much you can do,” said Shawn McIntyre, a gay 19-year-old from Queens. “I feel it’s about being smart and about just being positive in your own mentality.” Wearing condoms during sex is always essential, he added; when asked if he was always safe, Mr. McIntyre laughed nervously. “I try to be,” he said, “I try to be.”

The assumed invincibility of youth is tough for any piece of theater to challenge, said Jerry Mitchell, the Tony Award-winning choreographer, who recently secured 500 discounted tickets to “The Normal Heart” for the dancers and others in Broadway Bares, the annual charity event that raises money for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Organization. He wanted to give his performers, many of whom are young gay men, “a stronger sense of why they’re dancing and taking off their clothes every year at Broadway Bares, a stronger sense of why we’re fighting.

“The most common reaction I heard from them afterward was, ‘I had no idea about any of this,’ ” Mr. Mitchell said. “The reality is, when you’re young, you can’t imagine anything killing you, whether it’s bullets or AIDS. I’m not sure if a play can change that, but maybe this play will inspire audience members to come up with new great ideas in the fight.”

For her part Ms. Roth said she was inspired to produce the play not because of money — the play will not end up turning a profit on Broadway — but family: her son Jordan, a Broadway theater owner, is gay.

“When he came out to me was the moment I had to learn everything I could about gay culture,” Ms. Roth said. “Bringing this play to others is in that same spirit.”