I've heard so many wonderful things about THE NORMAL HEART both on the page and stage, but I have not seen it to offer a comparison.
That said, iHo put me on the floor and left my head reeling and my heart pounding like no play (or production) in recent memory. I'm still shaking it off and would gladly watch it 10 more times. In fact, I'm already trying to figure out how I can get back and see it again before it closes. Lots of people have said that it's "messy." I'm not entirely sure what that means. It's epic and loud and full of tangents, yes. If that's messy, then messy it is, because it's full to bursting with ideas and emotions in the same way AiA is. But never is it sloppy, cumbersome, or abstruse.
Could it be cut down from its current 3:45 running time? Absolutely. There are swaths of its text that could go and serve to streamline the characters' intertwining journeys. But to me, the amazing thing about Kushner is that his even his most "extraneous" bits are 10 times more exhilarating than most playwrights' entirely essential bits, and the pleasure is in hearing a master dialectician and storyteller at work. God, those speeches! I'll take messy Kushner over tidy Kushner any day of the week... because I believe his grand "messiness" is the yin to the yang of his nuanced humanity and character detail. It's also (with one small exception) astonishingly (and I don't use that word lightly) performed.
Not for a single second was I less than 110% engaged, and nearly 4 hours sailed by. I actually felt depressed when it ended. (And my mother, who doesn't know Karl Marx from Zeppo Marx, was transfixed and speechless afterwards.)
THE NORMAL HEART may be every bit as marvelous. I can't say. It has quite a legendary reputation, and I look forward to it. But anyone interested in contemporary theater would, I feel, being doing him or herself a disservice to miss iHo.
(Re-reading what I've just written, it's almost embarrassing, how over-the-top it sounds. For what it's worth -- which may be nothing to a stranger -- I consider myself to be a discerning, sometimes hypercritical, theatregoer. But I stand by every word.)
CHURCH DOOR TOUCAN GAY MARKETING PUPPIES MUSICAL THEATER STAPLES PERIOD OIL BITCHY SNARK HOLES
Updated On: 4/13/11 at 05:51 PM
No matter what, the OP is going to have a tough choice to make. NYC is an embarrassment of riches this spring. 
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