When Larry Kramer first staged his furious play, The Normal Heart, in 1985 at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in New York, it was an uncompromising demand for action. It is now revered as a seminal piece of activist theater. As queer communities in many parts of the world face a rollback of rights and funding for HIV prevention and research is being threatened, Kramer’s work once again feels urgently relevant.
Over recent years, major revivals—from Broadway in 2011 to London’s National Theatre in 2021—have seen this landmark story reassessed in a new age of activism. Now, Australia’s Sydney Theatre Company (STC), where Kramer’s play received its Australian premiere, is restaging the work in a city recently scarred by violent antisemitism, a clampdown on protest rights, and controversial new hate speech laws.
For this production, STC Artistic Director Mitchell Butel steps into the role of Ned Weeks (a character he played three years ago in Adelaide) and is joined by a multi-generational cast of queer actors, including Tim Draxl as Bruce Niles, Nicholas Brown as Felix Turner, Fraser Morrison in dual roles as Grady and Craig, and screen star Keiynan Lonsdale in his mainstage debut as Tommy Boatwright.
Ahead of the opening of The Normal Heart on Monday, February 9th, the cast took a break from rehearsals to talk with Chad Armstrong for The Queer Review about the play’s shocking relevance and power.
Chad Armstrong, The Queer Review: How is this play resonating with you in this moment?
Keiynan Lonsdale: “In some ways, we are going through this right now, with what’s happening all over the world; in Iran and in America. How do you protest something? How do you rise up? When I read the play, what drew me in was seeing this group of people moving forward. They’re not passive, even though some may seem passive in comparison to Ned Weeks. I was really inspired by how much action they take and how they continue to persevere. It’s really easy to shut down during times of crisis.”
Tim Draxl: “There’s been so much anxiety around speaking up at the moment. What should you be supporting? What shouldn’t you be supporting? Do I speak up about this? Are people going to threaten me online? Is this going to cost me a job if I speak up? This show demonstrates the difference you can make, regardless of how you approach it.”
Keiynan: “For younger people, it’s like, this is what it means to stand up and fight. Okay, we might have to make sacrifices, but we’ll leave the world better for the next generation.”
What was your first encounter with The Normal Heart?
Nicholas Brown: “Many years ago at acting school my teacher suggested I do a monologue by Felix—who is Ned’s lover in the play—for agents’ day. I hadn’t worked out that I was queer yet, but he obviously had. I just wasn’t ready then. So after all these years, it’s nice to be able to play Felix and feel safe enough to do it.”
Keiynan: “Mine was the 2014 HBO film version. It came out at such a beautiful time for me. I was in Los Angeles, slowly coming into my identity, slowly getting there to coming out. I actually came out at the wrap party for Love, Simon.”
Tim Draxl: “Oh, wow!”
Fraser Morrison: “I knew about it because of its importance to our community and our stories being told in theater, but reading it for the first time before the audition astounded me. I was blown away by Larry Kramer’s ability to almost see the path laid out ahead of the community. He was like a prophet, grabbing audience members by the collar while the crisis was unfolding just outside the theater doors.”
Mitchell Butel: “I saw the Australian premiere in 1989 at the Sydney Theatre Company. I was 19 and dealing with my own sexuality in the midst of the crisis in Australia. It was a really key moment for me. I’ve had a kind of love affair with the play ever since.”
Mitchell, you’re now the Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company, following on from Tony Award–nominated director Kip Williams, who in turn followed Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton. Why bring The Normal Heart back to STC now and why star in it yourself?
Mitchell Butel: “I think The Normal Heart speaks to so many issues. The play may be more than 40 years old, but it’s incredibly resonant. It looks at what it means to be in a state of crisis, what it means to disagree, and what it means to try to unify.”
“Larry Kramer was such a master of oratory. That plague speech he gave at one of the early ACT UP meetings—where he pauses for 20 seconds and then just yells the word “plague…We are in the middle of a fucking plague”—is incredible and it’s worth watching on YouTube. Kramer had to find ways to disrupt and subvert. I think he’d be hardcore on social media these days. But unlike many social media sound-biters, Kramer had the ability to follow through with fact and skill.”
It’s a busy time for the Sydney Theatre Company. You’re opening The Normal Heart and Pulitzer Prize & Tony Award winning play, Purpose, in a few weeks, plus you’ve got Cynthia Erivo in Kip Williams’ Dracula in London.
Mitchell: “It’s super busy. I mean, we’re a very lean team, so I won’t lie to you, the hours are pretty crazy! We want to bring great theater from around the world to Australia and Purpose is just a knockout play about debate divergence and hypocrisy and power. Not unlike The Normal Heart. It’s great that shows like Dracula (and The Picture of Dorian Gray) that were originated at Sydney Theater Company, are now dominating world stages as well. It’s a great honor to follow in Kip Williams’ footsteps. I think he’s such a brilliant and inventive theatermaker. He’s getting the international success that he deserves.”
Tim, you and Nick both starred in the TV miniseries In Our Blood, often referred to as an “Australian Normal Heart” for the way it lightly fictionalized Australia’s response to AIDS in the 1980s. What differences have you found working on The Normal Heart?
Tim: “ In 1983, Neal Blewett, the Australian health minister, and Bill Bowtell, an openly gay man working in the health department, went to America and saw how out of control things were and said, ‘We cannot follow America’s lead in this.’ They came back and managed to get the entire government, on both sides, to cooperate. They approached it with compassion and understanding. I think one of the most incredible things was that they managed to get funding from the government and then let the community lead, because they knew the gay community could speak to the gay community in a way the government couldn’t.”
“Bill, in the face of being threatened by politicians and certain community leaders, was accused of pushing too hard, much like Ned in The Normal Heart. They said he was going to scare everyone. He turned around and said, ‘That’s exactly what we need to do, because it’s the only way we’re going to get people to respond in the way we need to save their own lives.’ At the last estimate, around 40,000 lives were saved because of what Bill and Neal did.”
“The most important thing is that HIV is no longer a death sentence today. We have things like PrEP. We have ART. Things are very different to the 80s or 90s. But even now in Australia we have better access to medications than my friends in America do.”
Are we at risk of forgetting the devastation that the HIV/AIDS crisis had on our community now that treatment can make HIV undetectable and untransmittable?
Nicholas: “A lot of straight people don’t know about PrEP or what it means to be undetectable. The gay community obviously does, but it’s surprising how often that knowledge doesn’t extend beyond it. There’s less stigma today, but there’s still a long way to go.”
Fraser: “ I’m really happy we have things like PrEP now and that we have stories and narratives that push us forward into new spaces, not just stories of death and tragedy. But we’re still recovering from that deep damage and scarring. It affected different generations in different ways.”
Do you see The Normal Heart as being more than a historical play?
Nicholas: “At its heart it’s a beautiful love story. Even though there is tragedy, these two men find each other. There’s also a lot of humor in it. That surprised me in rehearsals. It’s 1980s New York, so you can imagine the music and the fashion. Gay men were still going to discos during that time.”
Fraser: “The idea of it being “a historical play” is funny to me, because it wasn’t that long ago. We have the honor of telling these stories. When I did Jack Holden’s play Cruise, a big part of it for me was talking to queer elders and learning things that aren’t in the history books. As a younger person, it feels like discovering there was this queer utopia, even though much of it existed behind closed doors and then this epidemic came through and bulldozed that. I think we’re still trying to rebuild what was lost.”
Tim: “Out of respect for the sacrifices so many people made before us that allowed us to live the lives we’ve lived, it’s incredibly important to keep telling their stories. We need to understand what was given up so we can enjoy the freedoms we have today — freedoms that can be taken away very quickly as we’re seeing right now.”
Mitchell: “Joseph Papp, who originally produced the play at the Public Theater in New York, likened it to Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets, and Henrik Ibsen. You can really see that line of thought. Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is about a community dealing with infected water. The Normal Heart sits within those narratives about the suppression of facts and inaction, like the film Erin Brockovich. It belongs alongside AIDS narratives like Angels in America and My Night with Reg, but it’s also about individual action against indifference.”
How’s the rehearsal process going? For three of you, this is your STC debut isn’t it?
Keiynan: ”This is my first theater job. I did a musical 16 years ago, but this is my first play. I was scared for that reason. I could tell that my friends who’d done more theater had different acting muscles. They were sharper, more flexed. I knew I wanted that. The openness of the rehearsal space and the constant workshopping have been so fulfilling.”
Tim: “And you’re killing it, Keiynan!”
Keiynan: “Thanks! I love that the play depicts so many different versions of what it means to be a strong man. There are so many different expressions of strength, courage, and perseverance. As soon as I read it, I thought, I wish I could be this witty. I wish I could persevere this much in the face of tragedy. I wish I could keep the laughter and the sass alive while going through it. Like, how do you do that?”
Tim: ”I’m not a theater-trained actor. Coming into something like this, especially at the Sydney Theatre Company, there’s an expectation to raise the bar. I was very scared coming into rehearsals with people who’ve done a lot of theater and with Mitchell and our director Dean Bryant, but it’s such a safe space.”
Mitchell: “I must say, Dean is a truly great director and a beautiful human being. As Artistic Director, I was grateful for someone else to be the boss of the room. It’s the freest I’ve ever felt as an actor and the least afraid. That’s a real credit to Dean and the structures he puts in place to support people doing their best work.”
The play takes its title from a W. H. Auden poem, “September 1, 1939,” written at the start of the Second World War about political indifference and the demand to care for one another in a time of crisis, which feels horribly contemporary.
Fraser: ”So much has been said recently about whether theater is the place for politics. This show is the perfect example that not only is it, but it always has been. That doesn’t stop it being an entertaining piece of theater. This story could be about the climate crisis or anything happening today that needs action. Everyone can engage with it in different ways.”
Tim: “Anyone with a political opinion, whether it’s about Gaza, Ukraine, or the new hate speech laws that have just come into place here, should see The Normal Heart, because it shows how you can act in different ways. I interviewed Bill Bowtell again the other day, and he said, ‘If you disagree with what your government is doing, speak up. Rise up. Act up’—he used that exact phrase—’because that’s the only way things change.'”
Lastly, name a piece of queer culture that’s standing out to you at the moment.
Keiynan: “Positively Naked, a short doco on HBO.”
Fraser: “I’ve been going down the rabbit hole that is Arthur Russell’s discography.”
Nicholas Brown: “I’d have to say the music of a queer Norwegian singer-songwriter called Metteson. He sings about queer love and his melodies are heartbreakingly beautiful and uplifting.”
Mitchell Butel: “I absolutely love English Teacher, the American TV series created by and starring Brian Jordan Alvarez. So funny, so zeitgeist, so fresh, and so smart.”
The Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart runs at the Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre from February 9th through March 14th , 2026. For more details and to book tickets head to sydneytheatre.com.au.
Queer Night: on Tuesday, February 17th there will be a special post-show panel discussing the themes of this queer classic and celebrating Sydney Theatre Company’s LGBTQI+ community members and allies.
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