At the height of the AIDS epidemic, theater became a way for audiences to process the tragedy and a tool to humanize the gay community to those in power who were indifferent or openly hostile to their plight.
The plays written during that era – the most well-known being Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart – have become some of the most enduring works for the stage. They are often similar in their tones of desperation and graphic portrayal of suffering. There is a reason why these plays had to “scream” their messages — because no one was paying attention, said Daniel Hurewitz, author and historian.
“The character Ned screams his way through that play for two hours,” said Hurewitz about The Normal Heart. “Nobody’s paying attention, no one cares about gay men dying.”
Hurewitz attended last weekend’s production of Steven Dietz’s Lonely Planet at Luna Stage in West Orange. After the performance, he joined director Melissa Firlit and actors John Keller and Dustin Ballard for a discussion about the play’s themes and its unique voice that stands out from its contemporaries.
“This play doesn’t have the trope of suffering on stage, seeing the trauma on stage,” said Keller, who played Jody. “You just see the two people caring for each other.”
Dietz’s play was first performed in 1993, the same year Kushner’s play debuted on Broadway. While it has earned a place in the pantheon of queer literature, it isn’t as widely known as others from that era. Unlike Angels in America and The Normal Heart, Lonely Planet has never been staged for Broadway.
The story is told through the friendship of two gay men. The entire play takes place within Jody’s cartography shop. The setting becomes a safe space for him and his best friend, Carl, played by Ballard, to retreat while the epidemic rages on outside. The irony is not lost on the viewer that a man who romanticizes maps is unwilling to face the world.
Meanwhile, Carl, whose frivolity conceals a depth of character slowly revealed, is the friend we need in times of trouble, sometimes serving as a distraction or other times literally pushing his friend outside to face his fears. The inner workings of this friendship are complex, entertaining, and moving.
The actors revealed after the show that they are real-life best friends — it is felt. Ballard said he has been wanting to do this play since finding it in a Manhattan bookstore in 2006. “I read it in The Drama Book Shop and cried my eyes out,” Ballard said. “We did a reading that Melissa directed and that laid the groundwork for what became this production.”
The story begins with Jody discovering a chair in his shop. Collecting them appears at first to be the neurotic hobby of his friend, Carl, but later they are revealed to be tributes to friends lost to AIDS.
After intermission, when the audience comes back into the theater, they find the chairs in heaps on stage and hanging from the ceiling. The visual clutter – the set was cleverly designed by Luna Stage’s production manager, Lucas Pinner – becomes a powerful symbol of the death toll.
But in the end, it is the depiction of this friendship – a part of gay life not shown enough in film and theater – that one leaves the theater thinking about.
Ballard shared what playwright Dietz, who attended the play’s opening night, told him. “He said, “We can’t talk about friendship enough,” Ballard said.
