SOURCE: "Going to the Heart of AIDS," in Newsweek, Vol. CV, No. 19, 13 May 1985, pp. 87, 89.

In the following, Kroll emphasizes the universality of The Normal Heart. "Like the best social playwrights, " he states, "Kramer produces not a series of debates but a cross fire of life-and-death energies that illuminate the many issues and create a fierce and moving human drama. "

With As Is and The Normal Heart, reality returns to the theater season with a vengeance. The two most powerful and disturbing plays of the year both deal with the crisis generated by AIDS—acquired immune deficiency syndrome—the mysterious, virulent and lethal disease that has reached epidemic status, especially among homosexuals. There was a time when such issues were the stuff of theater—Ibsen's Ghosts pivoted around syphilis, Galsworthy's Justice dealt with exactly that and in America during the 1930s the stage seethed with drama in which social...