SOURCE: "Drama of Rage and Despair," by Sheridan Morley, in The Times, London, 25 March 1986, p. 8.

In the following conversation between Kramer and the Times critic Sheridan Morley, the playwright discusses the genesis and development of The Normal Heart.

Early last year two very different AIDS memoirs opened in New York, both dealing with what had already become the plague-panic of homosexual communities there and elsewhere. The one that opened on Broadway to generally more respectable and respectful reviews was William Hoffman's As Is, a 90-minute closet drama of extreme good taste which managed to pussy-foot around its awful subject so successfully that even the uptown Manhattan matrons remained unappalled.

Downtown at Joe Papp's Public Theatre, and in stark contrast, was Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, a great cry of dramatic and journalistic rage at the way the AIDS catastrophe has been handled by and in New York City...