Broadway Review Roundup: THE NORMAL HEART - All the Reviews!

The Broadway premiere of Larry Kramer's ground-breaking play The Normal Heart officially opens tonight, Wednesday, April 27, at the Golden Theatre (252 West 45th Street). The limited, 12-week engagement, directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, began performances on Tuesday, April 19.

The cast of The Normal Heart includes Ellen Barkin (Ocean's 13), Patrick Breen (Next Fall), Mark Harelik (Mrs. Warren's Profession), John Benjamin Hickey ("The Big C"), Luke Macfarlane ("Brothers and Sisters"), Joe Mantello (Angels in America), Lee Pace ("Pushing Daisies"), Jim Parsons ("The Big Bang Theory"), Richard Topol (The Merchant of Venice), and Wayne Alan Wilcox (Coram Boy).

The design team includes David Rockwell (sets), Martin Pakledinaz (costumes), David Weiner (lighting), David Van Tieghem (sound and original music), and Batwin & Robin(projections).

The story of a city in denial, The Normal Heart unfolds like a real-life political thriller -- as a tight-knit group of friends refuses to let doctors, politicians and the press bury the truth of an unspoken epidemic behind a wall of silence. First produced by Joseph Papp at New York's Public Theater, the play was a critical sensation and a seminal moment in theater history. So ahead of its time was this play that many of the core issues it addresses - including gay marriage, the healthcare system and, of course, AIDS - are just as relevant today as they were when it first premiered.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: More than a quarter of a century after it first scorched New York, "The Normal Heart" is breathing fire again...the play remains a bruiser. This is a production, after all, in which the showstoppers are diatribes. (One delivered by Ms. Barkin, playing an endlessly frustrated doctor, receives the kind of sustained applause usually reserved for acrobatic tap dancers.) What this interpretation makes clear, though, is that Mr. Kramer is truly a playwright as well as a pamphleteer.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: There's so much urgency in Kramer's play that it doesn't exactly qualify as a historical artifact. It also brings up a lot of issues, like gay marriage and the right to inherit, that remain relevant outside their original context. Mostly, though, the play still works because it has the power to move and disturb us. As the play's original producer, Joe Papp, put it: "I love the ardor of this play, its howling, its terror and its kindness."

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press: Larry Kramer's historic play about the beginning of an epidemic that has killed millions can be seen as a time capsule of a period when the disease was first emerging. But it can also be a cautionary tale for any horror we have yet to fully grasp...Mantello manages to make his unlovable Weeks lovable and he steers clear of hagiography. Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe co-direct and push the throttle - each scene is fraught with emotion, anger is quick to explode, papers are tossed with abandon, and any moment of humor is milked for the relief it offers from a hectic production.

Elisabeth Vincintelli, New York Post: In its Broadway debut with a starry cast that includes Joe Mantello, Ellen Barkin and Jim Parsons, "The Normal Heart" hasn't lost any of its anger or biting humor, but it feels more like a fascinating time capsule. Most impressive is John Benjamin Hickey as Ned's lover. As he changes from handsome, assured newspaper reporter into a shell of a man ravaged by disease, he embodies the painful intersection of the political and the personal where "The Normal Heart" beats.

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: Back then, "The Normal Heart" was a raging, wailing wakeup call. Now it's a look back, a period piece. But one with the power to make you wince and weep.

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter: In this shattering revival of Larry Kramer's polemical howl of anger and despair, The Normal Heart, the 30 years since the first whispers of what became known as AIDS were heard and ignored evaporate in an instant...marquee value is not the point here; this is a spectacularly well-cast production in which every role has found its ideal interpreter. This is tough, unflinching drama staged and performed by people with a fierce emotional investment in telling this story and keeping this painful history alive for generations inclined to forget.

Jeremy Gerard, Bloomberg: In a Broadway season robust with bravura performances, comes another that makes demands of our souls along with our ears...As played -- no, embodied -- by Mantello with fathomless compassion and dignity (not to mention charm and humor), Ned is impossible to ignore. "The Normal Heart" is unabashed agitprop, which is rarely welcome on Broadway, and Ned Weeks is an unlikely hero. But as "Jerusalem" is also showing us, not all heroes wear white hats. Some are unpleasant company, doing what they must, demanding that attention be paid.

Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal: now that AIDS has become a chronic condition rather than a death sentence, Mr. Kramer's play must stand on its artistic merits, not its impassioned sincerity. How does it hold up? Better than I expected, but not as well as I'd hoped. Mr. Kramer portrays himself as a flawed but ultimately heroic figure...that he really did make a historic contribution to the fight against AIDS doesn't make the portrayal any easier to swallow without gagging.

Thom Geier, Entertainment Weekly: At the heart of the new production, directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe, is a subtle and superb performance by Joe Mantello...This is not a great play, to be honest. There is too much speechifying by characters who are too easily interchangeable. But as a chronicle of a historical moment, The Normal Heart still packs a serious emotional wallop. (B+)

Matt Windman, amNY: Larry Kramer's seminal AIDS drama "The Normal Heart" is the kind of show that hits you like a jackhammer. Twenty-five years since it premiered at the Public Theater, it remains a powerful example of political theater at its most direct, passionate and urgent levels. Mantello captures Weeks' confrontational, occasionally hysterical spirit but combines it with easygoing charisma and convincing emotion. He is joined by an outstanding ensemble cast.

Erik Haagensen, Backstage: Mantello navigates Ned's symphonic rage expertly, never alienating us even when the character easily could...Kramer's indispensable work tells us who we were and how we got here. Such knowledge is indispensable for knowing where we should be headed and how to get there. If you see only one play this year, make it "The Normal Heart."

Jonathan Mandell, The Faster Times: All of this might lead one to expect that the revival of "The Normal Heart" would be a political, historical, even anthropological experience rather than a theatrically satisfying one. It is certainly true that "The Normal Heart" is not the best play to deal with AIDS...But "The Normal Heart" can be appreciated as a play, rather than as a cause or a series of hectoring lectures.

Linda Winer, Newsday: "The Normal Heart" was never meant to be a subtle work. Larry Kramer wrote it in 1985 to be a shock to the system, an alarm siren, a blunt instrument to bludgeon Ed Koch's New York, Ronald Reagan's Washington, the indifferent press and complacent medical industry into acknowledging the mysterious disease destroying gay men..."The Normal Heart" still beats today.

Michael Musto, The Village Voice: By the end of the masterful revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart--directed by Joel Grey and George C. Wolfe--the audience has been put through an emotional ringer and is almost too shattered to applaud. But they do. They cheer.

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