A history lesson like no other at The Normal Heart

                Once my parents and I decided that, for our first family vacation in years, we would go to NYC to see a bunch of Broadway shows (seven, to be exact), I knew we had to see The Normal Heart.  I had heard so much buzz about it, and my parents were willing to go along, as well – my dad because I told him he had to and that it was groundbreaking theater, and my mom because she loves Jim Parsons.

                So, on that Tuesday, two days after arriving in New York City for the best vacation ever, we settled into our seats at the John Golden Theatre – in the center of the front row of the rear mezzanine, to see The Normal Heart, my first ever straight play on Broadway.  Though the seats at the Golden were slightly cramped, I was busy reading my Playbill and taking in the sights of the theater.  The theater walls were mostly white with some gold and blue emblems for decoration.  The relatively less ornate décor of the John Golden was a good companion to the set design.  Before the show began, the stage was completely empty, and the backdrop was solid white, with quotes etched out.  Once the play began, the white backdrop was used for well-designed projection.  The set pieces, which came out with the actors, were minimal and utilitarian.  I liked it.  It let the acting shine.

                No matter how someone feels about this play, it is undeniable that the acting is first-rate.  My particular acting shout-out has to go to Ellen Barkin.  She was simply stunning.  Her second-act monologue brought me to tears, simply from how committed she was to her character and how committed her character was to the cause.  It doesn’t get better than that, folks!  The ensemble cast was stunning – every single actor contributed nicely to the piece as a whole.

                As for the play itself, I found it moving.  There was a point when I was thinking it might be too focused on the anger of Ned, but when I thought about the people who aren’t in the play – everyone else in New York City at the time – and I realized that Ned is one of only a handful of people who were that furious, it made sense.  The context is important.  In addition, at the TalkOut afterward, Cynthia O’Neal said that the play shows exactly what it was like in the early 1980s: young men were dying, and no one really seemed to care at all.

                It was just pure good luck that the tickets we had for The Normal Heart fell on the night of the TalkOut with Anthony Rapp and Cynthia O’Neal, founder of Friends in Deed.  We bought the tickets before the TalkOut was announced, but I was pretty excited that I got to go to it.  My mom is still disappointed that she was never called on, even though she was raising her hand, but other than that, my family enjoyed it as well.  The topics discussed ranged from what it was really like in New York City in the early 1980s, particularly for the LGBT community to what is being done now to make sure stories like this don’t get pushed aside.  Aside from the fact that it was really cool to be sitting mere feet from Anthony Rapp (I have some friends who are totally jealous), it was great to put the show, which takes place in the early 1980s, into context and really see what it means to a current audience.

                As someone who wasn’t born until 1986, what I took away from my experience at The Normal Heart was an understanding of what happened to the generation before me, from an uncensored source, depicted honestly and beautifully.