‘HEART’ IS ON THE PULSE OF AIDS CRISIS

A recent story about AIDS in this newspaper noted, “In a cruel irony, the AIDS crisis hit at a time when homosexuals in America were on the verge of acceptance. Now, gay leaders fear that political and social gains are imperiled. . . .”

Playwright Larry Kramer doesn’t believe that acceptance of gays was anywhere near a social norm, at least as far as New York (where he lives) is concerned. Kramer is a producer and screenwriter (“Women in Love” is his most notable achievement) and playwright whose “The Normal Heart” opens Dec. 10 at the Las Palmas Theatre.

It isn’t exactly autobiographical, and the term AIDS is never mentioned, but one doesn’t have to scratch the surface very deeply to see how personal a play it is about this crisis.

“A bunch of us started early on the front line against the epidemic,” Kramer said. “It’s not that we wanted to get involved. We had no choice. I was one of six founding members of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. At first it was supposed to be an informational and advocacy group, but because of the diversity of opinions within it, it ceased to be political and instead became a patient services organization.

“My concern is that, while the dying are being attended to, the living are not. Nothing is being done to protect the living. Nobody is fighting for us. There’s not a single national organization worth anything that’s helping.

“ ‘The Normal Heart’ is an attempt to show why it took so long for AIDS to get attended to. It was perceived as a gay disease. . . . Over a period of five years, the Gay Men’s Health Crisis was given $180,000 for patient care. For the same period in San Francisco, $20 million has been allocated.”

If this is a play about New York’s political response to an issue, why is it playing Los Angeles?

“Because, having said all that, ‘The Normal Heart’ is basically a love story. It’s an attempt to show love triumph over the worst conditions. Any tragedy can get out of hand. The status of gays now is not unlike that of Jews in the ‘30s. What is it about us that prevents us from fighting for our lives when we face death? In this case you have the double whammy: sex and death.”

Richard Dreyfuss will head the eight-member cast. Arvin Brown directs.

The Lincoln Center Theater in New York, which has been dark since 1981, will reopen Dec. 20, when the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre hosts a double bill of two new plays by David Mamet, “Prairie du Chien” and “The Shawl,” directed by Gregory Mosher. The second production will be John Guare’s “The House of Blue Leaves,” directed by Jerry Zaks.

The Newhouse is the smaller complement of the Vivian Beaumont and will emphasize new works by American playwrights, as opposed to the Beaumont’s emphasis on world classics. Gregory Mosher is director and Bernard Gersten is executive producer of the new Lincoln Center Theater Company.

LATE CUES: San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has been incorporated as a full professional nonprofit year-round organization since 1982. Last week’s Stage Watch erroneously implied that its professional status was two years old. . . . Richard Stayton has been appointed theater critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. . . . The Guthrie’s touring company of “Great Expectations” will play the Norris Theater in Palos Verdes on Tuesday. (213) 544-0403 . . . The provocatively titled “On the Verge, or the Geography of Yearning” by Eric Overmeyer opens at Taper, Too Nov. 29. Information: (213) 972-7373. In other news from the Taper, Guy Giarrizzo will be leaving the press department Dec. 20 to work as a free-lance producer and director. Giarrizzo is on the board of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in Los Angeles.