Drama Theatre, February 12
8/10
“Whoever thought you’d die from having sex?” asks Felix late in this play. AIDS has killed about seven times more people than COVID, behind which statistic lie value judgements made by governments, pharmaceutical companies, religious organisations, the medical profession and perhaps the public at large.
Larry Kramer’s 1985 play is semi-autobiographical, in that he, like his character Ned Weeks, was a gay writer in New York City, wondering why his friends were dying. Soon enough, he was desperately trying to spread the word of the first doctor to treat numerous cases, Dr Linda Laubenstein (renamed Emma Brookner, in the play): that sex might be one of the ways the virus spread. Weeks’ mission, to convince gay men to stop copulating, when they’d only recently begun to feel sexually liberated, met fierce repudiation in his community.
Kramer’s play is well crafted, except that’s its near verbatim nature is also its minor flaw: an inbuilt stasis resulting from Weeks’ ever-mounting anger in the face of the surging deaths of friends, lovers and the lovers of friends.
Mitchell Butel, Sydney Theatre Company’s artistic director, makes a welcome return to our stages as Ned in this STC resurrection of a 2022 State Theatre Company South Australia production, directed by Dean Bryant.
“Weakness terrifies me,” Ned tells Felix, and true to his word, he deals predominantly in outrage, confrontation and belligerence. Butel mostly excels at giving Ned the requisite intensity, without overcooking it to the point where virtually every exchange becomes a shouting match, with no nuance to the scale of the climaxes. He’s even better when restraining Ned’s rage, quivering and almost leaping out of his own skin.
Much of that rage is directed at Bruce, the reserved banker who’s made president of the organisation which Ned founds to fight AIDS. Every cause needs warriors and diplomats, and the gifted Tim Draxl shines at remaining almost infuriatingly mild-mannered in the face of the growing horror.
Perhaps outstripping both Butel and Draxl is Nicholas Brown as Felix, the love of Ned’s life. Brown gives Felix such glowing warmth that even his more philosophical statements never sound pontificating, and Bryant creates a glorious moment when Felix first visits Ned’s apartment. They each have a beer, and when Felix deposits his on the glass coffee table, Ned whips a coaster beneath it the with the sudden comedic flourish of a magician. (Bryant also has his actors linger unnecessarily at the end of some scenes with what in film would be reactions shots.)
Amid a cast of nine, Emma Jones, playing the no-nonsense Dr Brookner, is torrential delivering her diatribe when denied research funding, Mark Saturno stands out with is gradual softening of Ned’s straight brother, Ben, and Keiynan Lonsdale brings an elfin lightness to Tommy.
The ending packs the intended emotional punch, by which time Ned is learning, as Felix suggests, to be just a little more patient and forgiving.
Until March 14.