THE NORMAL HEART Reviews — Page 7

Exactly, Dreaming. Exactly.

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Having been away from this Board for some time, I am just now getting around to reading this complete thread, from the almost unheard-of unanimous raves (save the Wall Street Journal), to the many comments of those many Board members who obviously were blown away by both the original production and now by the current production of THE NORMAL HEART. How I wish I lived closer to NYC so that I could see it. Is there any chance that the production might extend it's run through December, which is the next time that I could be there? THE NORMAL HEART seems to be obligatory theatergoing for anyone who cares about the theatre and who cares about humanity.

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Love seeing this thread back on the first page again. My husband and I saw Normal Heart on Friday June 10th, followed by Jerusalem at the Saturday matinee on the 11th. Absolutely no comparison between the two plays or the 2 lead performances. Jerusalem was for us a collection of characters in desperate search of a play, and Mark Rylance could only do so much singing and dancing in a part that was essentially flailing around in a great void.

The Normal Heart on the other hand was superb on every front. Stunning to see that a play written as a political act in 1985 could be still seen as a timely call to arms in 2011 as WELL as a singular piece of true theater that belongs among the great works of literature of the 20th century. We were endlessly moved by Joe Mantello's every minute onstage, along with John Benjamin Hickey and especially the much-maligned Jim Parsons. Dazzling performances all.

We share with some of the posters here a more measured appreciation of Ellen Barkin's work. Impressed but not moved by her monologue of inexorable anger that wore us down but did not quite make us feel in our gut.

We were absolutely dazzled by the simple beauty of the white box that David Rockwell created to perfectly hold this play. [SPOILER ALERT] We therefore had quibbles with his choice (or George Wolfe's) to start flying in black velour panels to cover the set in mourning by the end of Act II. Did anyone else find it much harder to see the actors faces once we were peering at them through the black gloom? And while we're listing quibbles, we gave up trying to make sense of the random groupings of cast members scattered here and there around the periphery of the space as the night wore on. If they were there to represent the growing number of AIDS victims who'd died, didn't the simple and terrifying multiplying of names projecting on the walls tell that story so much more effectively?

Quibbles aside, it is clear we were moved as we seldom are by an evening of theater. Anyone who misses this production will be missing one of the greats.

Charles, I believe the concept of having the cast members on stage was to show that these character's world was closing in on them. Becoming more and more claustrophobic.

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Joe Mantello isn't doing anything until Other Desert Cities, he could extend.

"Weird binge of theatrical masochism" should be on the marquee. I can't stay away, and yet every time, I wonder why I do this to myself.

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I wish Mantello would continue working onstage. He keeps saying how much he didn't miss it, but I feel like many of his missed him. With his two Broadway roles, Louis Ironson and Ned Weeks, he has come to occupy a space in my imagination as the contemporary urban gay man. He's one of the people who can get me to go see a show I have no desire to see by virtue of his choice to be in it.

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I think I am going to have to start wearing reading glasses. So many of my posts have the wrong words in them. I feel like many of US missed him!

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