23 1986 03 18 BBC Newsnight - AIDS The Normal Heart London production

In September 2021 Larry Kramer’s play The Normal Heart was revived at the National Theatre - www.nationalth.... The play premiered in London on March 20th 1986 and this BBC programme reports some of the background to the pay and the cast - most notably Martin Sheen.
As the Press Officer for Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) I was asked to go and speak to the cast, to tell them about our experience. I visited the Royal Court Theatre one afternoon to sit in on a rehearsal. As I recall the scene played out on stage was one set in the rooms of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York and was a depiction of energy, confusion, turmoil and some panic. As I said to the cast it gave a very good impression of what walking into the THT rooms must feel like to an outsider. We talked about the message of the play and I said to the cast that they would be sought out for comments to back up all sorts of moral and political positions - especially Mr Sheen who was playing the main character Ned Weeks, a character based on Larry Kramer himself. My suggestion to them was to keep to the human side of the story - people under threat, friends dying, creating needed services, responding to a crisis and building a stronger community.
All the cast asked questions about the reality of working in this epidemic and had Mr Kramer under or overstated the issues - he got it right, I told them. Although his was a personal telling and that there were different cultural issues between GMHC and THT.
My meeting with Larry Kramer led me to realise, albeit much later, that he handed out his anger on an ‘equal opportunities’ basis - everyone deserved it and got it. He shouted at me from the moment that I was introduced to him until he was pulled away by colleagues. ‘Why hadn’t we done this’, ‘Why had we allowed that’, “People are dying and you are complacent’. I think that all the anger he had at everyone including GMHC was poured out on me. I doubt I was the only recipient of his anger.
That was a shame as until that point I was fan of Mr Kramer. His 1978 novel ‘Faggots’ was, to my mind, a splendid romp amongst a group of gay men in New York at that time. Far from the self-loathing of the 1970 film ‘The Boys in the Band’ (en.wikipedia.o...) or the powerlessness promoted in the 1966 film ‘Victim’ (en.wikipedia.o...) it portrayed a group of men who to varying degrees enjoyed their friendship, sex and their lives. It had a sex-positive attitude that even in early 1980 I couldn’t find anywhere else. Here I was being introduced to a model, if not hero, only to be abused by him. They say you should never meet your heroes.
When the play came to end of its run I had two moments of being ‘star struck’. There was a wrap party that I was invited to and was told that Mr Sheen wanted to talk to me. When I found him he was talking to a rather small woman dressed all in black. I stood at a respectful distance and waited to be ‘called over’ as it were. When they finished, he beckoned me mover and apologised for keeping me waiting but that he had be talking to his old friend Ava Gardner. I’m not a ‘film buff’ but as I watched this woman walk away I tried to connect this real person with the Hollywood created ‘Star’ and the fact that we were mere meters away from each other. And that was the moment, I cannot remember what was said for the next few minutes. When I returned to normal life I remember was saying thank you to Mr Sheen for his various interviews and supportive comments whilst playing the part of Ned Weeks in the play.
And just before we parted I shook his hand and he reached up to me and kissed me on the cheek - and that was the second moment of being Star struck.
When he left the role his place was taken by Tom Hulce. Whilst I met the cast again for this part of the run, Mr Hulce had no desire to meet or talk about the experience in London. Mr Hulce chose to portray the Ned Weeks / Larry Kramer character as one of suppressed anger, seething with suppressed rage which is perhaps what was going on inside Larry Kramer except that Mr Kramer tended to let it out on all and sundry in a way that Mr Hulce’s portrayal didn’t.
In some respects, Mr Hulce portrayed in the inner Kramer whilst Mr Sheen the Kramer that most of us actually met.
Royal Court Theatre: theatricalia.c...

[@bgeek]

Martin, thank you for the videos. It is an incredible collection you have made.

[@aids_archive]

Many thanks. It's amazing what you find tucked away!

[@quadencaroline3368]

Thank you so much for keeping and sharing the memory of this war.

[@aids_archive]

You're very welcome.

[@_letstartariot]

There is an irony of Martin Sheen performing in this play, and then many decades later his son Charlie is infected. At least we know that Martin will be an ally to his son.

[@cor2250]

Martin my fav acteur

[@kaliciajarvis5252]

I'm surprised people didn't pull this clip up when Charlie Sheen got it you know this is his dad