‘Faces’ Focuses on AIDS and Relationships : Play Avoids Maudlin, Preachy Tone in Educating Audiences

At one point in the play “Faces,” a series of sketches about AIDS, a young woman brings flowers to the grave of her brother.

“I thought we were through with the shooting-up stuff,” she tells him. “I’m sorry, but I’m really mad at you.”

She reminds her brother of their pact to help each other leave home and begin new lives. Instead, he has died of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The conversation then turns chatty--an update on friends and events--and the young woman leaves.

The scene has the ring of truth, as does most of “Faces.” Created as a vehicle for AIDS education, the play manages to avoid a preachy or maudlin tone. It does this with largely authentic portrayals of the impact of the disease on relationships. These vignettes are interspersed with musical numbers, humorous pieces and readings of newspaper excerpts.

The play, which concludes its run tonight and tomorrow at Actors Alley Repertory Theatre in Sherman Oaks, is based on the “living newspaper” concept developed by the Depression-era Federal Theatre Project.

“The idea was to put actors, stage designers and so on back to work without spending a lot of money,” said Carolyn Anderson, director and co-author of “Faces” and head of the theater department at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. “It was a way to keep culture going, and the themes were taken from the times--poverty, the farmers’ plight, syphilis.”

Anderson and co-author Wilma Hall, a Skidmore English professor, produced “Faces” on campus last year. Afterward, Anderson applied for and received a $25,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to stage the production in Southern California.

She brought in Actors Alley and the theater department at Cal State Northridge as partners. The play ran at CSUN for 2 weeks before moving to Actors Alley on Dec. 5. The 12-member cast is drawn evenly from the school and the theater company.

Anderson said the Southern California version of “Faces” is very different from the one staged on the East Coast. She and Hall spent 6 weeks here, putting together their material from interviews with public and private health officials and from local coverage of the AIDS crisis. Southern California newspapers are quoted, and the play mentions a San Fernando Valley hospice that is going in without community opposition. New medical information also has been added.

“That’s one of the beauties of the living newspaper format,” Anderson said. “We’re constantly changing it, updating it as the information changes.”

Bob Caine, managing director at Actors Alley and a “Faces” cast member, said he hopes to establish a high school touring program for the play.

“There’s a lot of factual information in it that teen-agers need to hear, because a lot of them feel exempt,” Caine said.

The cast gave successful pilot performances this fall at Eagle Rock High and University High, he said, adding: “We’re in discussions now with other schools.”

Priscilla Peuser of the James Irvine Foundation’s Newport Beach office said that “Faces” won a grant because of its potential to educate young people about AIDS. But the producers probably will have to find other sources of funding to continue the project, she said, because foundation policy discourages more than one grant to any organization in a 3-year period.

Caine said public education funds may be available to help finance a touring program.

The play is not tailored for a gay audience. Most of the characters are heterosexuals: a young woman finding the courage to ask her boyfriend to take the HIV antibody test, another woman insisting that her boyfriend use condoms, a nurse overcoming fear of treating AIDS patients, a young man who contracted AIDS from a woman and is telling his father.

Although the pieces are effective, their preponderance gives an unbalanced picture of the biggest areas of AIDS danger. Several times the play urges heterosexuals to use condoms, but it shies away from extensive treatment of the highest risk behaviors, anal intercourse and intravenous drug use.

Anderson said the imbalance was not an effort to avoid controversy by tempering the play’s frankness.

“There was a definite choice we made in the material,” she said. “We wanted to make sure that the general public realizes that it’s not just a gay disease and that it’s not only people who use contaminated needles. We wanted to take a burden of focus off the gay community.”

Some of the best pieces, nonetheless, are about gays. In one monologue, a man talks about the difficulty he had in coming out of the closet, and of how overcoming that obstacle had helped him deal with his AIDS diagnosis. Another shows an AIDS sufferer who returns to his hometown to renew contact with his roots. Although some members of his family accept him, others and the community at large do not.

The play’s simplicity lends clarity and sincerity to its messages of AIDS prevention and compassion for those infected. Most of the sketches are staged in the style of “Our Town,” with players on stage at one time and spotlights bringing their scenes to life. Sets are minimal. A backdrop shows slides of newspaper stories about AIDS.

Members of the production said that interest in the play has built during its run.

“This is not the sort of play where people flock to the box office,” said Anderson. “But once they see it, they tell their friends, ‘Your Girl Scout troop should come,’ or, ‘Your synagogue should see it.’ The word of mouth has been good.”

“Faces,” 8 tonight and Saturday; Actors Alley Repertory Theatre, 4334 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks, (818) 986-AART; tickets $7.50, seniors $5, students $3.50.