Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2011
The Normal Heart
The happiest thing you can say about Larry Kramer's angry 1985 play about America's slowness in recognizing the AIDS crisis is that it now seems dated. But that doesn't mean that, 26 years later, it still isn't a riveting piece of polemical theater. A cast that ranged from familiar TV faces (Jim Parsons, of The Big Bang Theory) to a one-time Hollywood sex symbol (Ellen Barkin) to a celebrated Broadway director returning to his acting roots (Joe Mantello) helped bring it back to life in a powerful Broadway revival last spring.