THE STORY: The place is a Manhattan police station, where a young man, Tom, is being interrogated after having created a disturbance at the hospital where his friend and lover has just died from AIDS. Although only Tom speaks, it is clear that the flood of memories that bursts forth is triggered by the uncomprehending questions of the policemen who now watch him in stony silence. At first he is defensive and impatient with his questioners’ inability to understand his behavior, but gradually, as he recalls his time with his lost friend, the depth of their feeling and commitment for each other emerges. Recalling a host of “little” details, Tom creates a telling portrait of two human beings who must come to understand themselves as individuals before they can comprehend their relationship to each other—much less their position relative to society at large. Sometimes poignant, sometimes harrowing, Tom’s deeply felt words also make it clear that the guilt and remorse he feels should, in truth, be shared by all who do not try to understand—or pledge themselves to overcome—this terrible pestilence has brought so much loss and suffering to our times.
An eloquent and uncompromising evocation of the terrible plague which is the AIDS crisis, told through the words of an aggrieved man who has lost his treasured friend and lover to the disease. Deeply affecting, the play has been presented extensively in connection with events raising funds to fight this dreadful scourge.
Included in the collection
The Moonshot Tape and A Poster of the Cosmos.
