Ok, finally responding to the original post. I don't think this is going to live up to what you or Jordan might be expecting, but I'm going to try anyway. A lot of the old-timers probably remember how much I cared for it first-hand, and I thought about digging up and posting my original "review" thread of it for you, but some of it is really embarrassing and I'd rather just filter it through my now-older eyes.
Anyway, I was still in high school when I saw The Public's production. My best friend and I had recently seen -- and fallen in love with -- the HBO film of Angels in America, which got us interested in the surrounding family of plays, so we decided to go see The Normal Heart. I was just sort of coming into being interested in theater as my own thing at that point; my parents had always taken me to see things as a child, but during high school was when I really started to take ownership of the interest, and go see things that I picked out, etc. This was the first straight play I had seen, probably, in at least five years, and of course with a few exceptions that same year because I had finally been deemed old enough, most of the things my parents had taken me to see were fairly light, or at least family-friendly. So I had, for the most part, no idea that theater (especially a straight play) could really "be like that." I was, in retrospect, coming from a place of absolute naivete. But, it opened me up in this monumental way. It gave me a sense of what theater is capable of that I had never understood before. It changed everything I knew about plays, and it changed my life.
I haven't seen Mantello's performance yet because I'm out of town, but I still count Raúl's as one of the greatest things I will ever see. I had actually never seen him on stage before this. I saw Taboo, but caught his understudy, and had begun the curiosity about this "Raúl Something With An E" guy by playing the tick, tick... BOOM! album on loop, but Ned Weeks was his "had me at hello." Ten minutes in, and I was in for life. I still, all these years later, can't quite put satisfactory words to what it was about him, but I don't think I had ever seen, even in my excessive-for-an-eighteen-year-old theatergoing, an actor who had that kind of absolutely gravitational magnetism. "Force of nature," is definitely a phrase that comes immediately to mind. There was this fire to his performance that is now sort of colloquially established as the Esparza "intensity," but the thing I remember most about it was that he had this magnificent way of balancing that fire with the warmth and sweetness that were lovable about Ned. And even more amazing to me was that he could turn that on you on a dime, but it would never feel artificial. I still don't think there are many actors who can negotiate that kind of transition as well as he can. There was something about him that you trusted, but you could also still believe that this was someone people feared and hated; his Ned would go from tiger to teddy bear in half a second flat, and you totally bought it. But even in the sweet moments, there was always something bubbling underneath. He was angry, charming, and passionate. Violently passionate. I hate using this word because it's become kind of cliché to use it about Raúl, but he had this frenetic energy about him as Ned: almost a nervousness, almost a twitchiness, a kind of constantly buzzing energy where he rarely stopped moving. You got the impression that Ned needed to constantly be engaged in some kind of activity, the kind of person who finds it hard to keep quiet or sit still; it was part of that sort of volcanic feel that he had to him. Part of what made clear just how driven he was. And yes, there was a lot of yelling and screaming, but I would never characterize the whole performance as generically "loud." He was loud and in-your-face when he needed to be, and softer and more restrained when that was right, too. I remember being mystified as to how he could go through that every single night. Actually, I'm still mystified as to how he could go through that every night.
The production as a whole was top notch. Not a weak link in that cast, and Raúl and Billy had great chemistry. Joanna Gleason was also something to be reckoned with. The intimacy of that space was perfect; you felt like you wanted to run away and hide, but you couldn't, and you were so close. The first row was almost literally on the stage. It was devastating, heartbreaking, and eye-opening, especially as a young person who didn't really know all that much about the source material at the time. I remember coming out of the theater in a daze, trembling, exhausted, angry, and feeling like I wanted to be able to do something. I had never experienced that before, even following my most moving theater experiences. I went back to my sheltered suburban world with this fierce new awareness. It made me want to educate myself and get involved -- in making theater like this, and in the fight. I bought the play immediately, read it over and over and over again. My first copy is still hanging on, but the pages are falling out. It is well-loved. My friend and I were in the middle of nailing down plans to go see it a second time when the abrupt closing happened. I've been waiting seven years for that second chance.
A work of art is an invitation to love.
Updated On: 5/6/11 at 02:30 PM
