SOURCE: "AIDS on Stage: Advocacy & Ovations," in Commonweal, Vol. CXII, No. 13, 12 July 1985, pp. 406-07.

In the review below, Weales notes several "aesthetic weaknesses" in The Normal Heart and observes that the play is "as much agitprop and accusation as it is personal drama. "

Theater has been generally tired and tepid this year. Yet, more and more often in the last few months, audiences have been responding noisily, whooping their approval, rising to their feet to applaud curtain calls. This has happened even at such embarrassing offerings as Grind and the Tony travesty Big River. Perhaps the response is simply one of desperation, born of deep need and short memories that cannot recall theatrical quality. The standing ovations in two instances—at William M. Hoffman's As Is and Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart—grow out of much more complex responses. Neither work seems to me particularly distinguished as a...