‘Raft of the Medusa’: Historical Reference Is Apt AIDS Metaphor

Covering most of a wall in the Louvre, Theodore Gericault’s magnificent “The Raft of the Medusa” depicts a true incident: survivors of the wreck of the ship Medusa, some dead, some dying, some waving their shirts in a vain effort to attract the attention of a passing ship.

History notes that one ship might not have noticed them. Another almost definitely passed them by. It is not unlike those modern castaways, the victims of AIDS: many not seen, many ignored. Hence the title of playwright Joe Pintauro’s seriocomic “Raft of the Medusa,” which opened Thursday under the auspices of Incline, the Theatre Group.

Incline is a company that settles in a different location for each of its “site-specific” productions. The setting for “Medusa” is a small space in a typical Santa Monica industrial neighborhood not much bigger than the raft in the painting. Pintauro’s victims of the world’s latest plague are trying to snag the attention of the public and the government and those at risk, particularly young people who think there is no possibility they could ever be at risk.

Pintauro had not intended to write an AIDS play, but saw a notice on the wall at Circle Rep, in New York, asking for scripts for actors with AIDS. He thought he might help. By the time he called, the notice was 2 years old, and he was told the actors had all died. But the seed was planted and, through a friend, he began his research at the Long Island AIDS Council.

Before long, “Medusa” opened at Greenwich Village’s Minetta Lane Theatre (where “Other People’s Money” had closed shortly before), and in the audience was Incline’s artistic director, Colleen Flynn. Incline’s first production had been nine short plays by Pintauro, called “Metropolitan Operas.” Soon after doing that production, Flynn heard about Medusa and went to New York to see it.

“Joe was incredibly motivated to write this play,” Flynn says, “because of the helplessness and the rage he felt in the people he was surrounded by--he had lost people to AIDS--and the people he spoke with. These characters were based upon people he had heard about while researching. There is a great deal of information that he wants to get across, and there are a lot of messages that are imbued in his characters, because his voice finds itself through every character. These people are not friends. They are brought together for only one reason, that they share the disease. That’s it.”

Laura Henry, who directed “Metropolitan Operas” for Incline and who’s directing “Medusa,” adds: “The difference in this play is that it isn’t just about AIDS. It’s not just about people with AIDS. It’s about people who have been abandoned by society. That covers a much broader range. Joe, as a playwright, is really strong in throwing ideas out--hitting you over the head, but you don’t get a headache. He kind of lets the questions hang in the air. It makes people stop and think about how our society, our government, has abandoned a whole group of people who are very, very ill. This play addresses that.

Henry’s concern fills her conversation. “This is a global disease,” she says, “and we’re living in a global decade, when we have to be united about a lot of things, not just a disease--to save the Earth, to not have a nuclear holocaust, to find a way to come together as a group.”

“First and foremost,” Flynn says, “we’re a theater company, but we can meld our personal agenda with a greater agenda, which is to really become a part of a solution. It’s very important that we educate ourselves, whether we are in a high-risk group or not. We all have the obligation in some way to continue the education of each other.”

Speaking from New York, playwright Pintauro says: “The one thing I tried to do with the play was to create a situation that would involve an audience into the emotional temperature of life among people with AIDS. Most people I know are only able to see the effects of this disease at a distance. People read about it in the paper. It’s an unpleasant, sort of repugnant subject for most people. It isn’t until someone you know and care about becomes ill that you are interested in the ramifications of the disease.”

What Pintauro wanted to do was not to write a play about relationships, but to help his audience see AIDS victims as a group. Also, he knew he was writing for an audience “which hadn’t come as an act of social consciousness to take their bad medicine. They really come to be moved and enlightened, and even entertained.

“The play has its own didacticism, and its own aspects of propaganda, but it also has some surprises. It’s like a basketball game. There are 12 people on stage, and there’s one ball, and they fight for the right to speak, the right to be heard.”

That right is not always easy. Believing that teen-agers are at great risk from AIDS, Incline recently held a series of benefits to raise money to present the play free in schools. David Mamet donated his “A Life in the Theatre” to be read by celebrities at both the Hudson Theatre and the Coast Playhouse. The benefits were successful. But the L.A. Unified School District turned the offer down.

Flynn recalls their reasons. “They can’t condone the language we’re using, in schools,” she says. “I hear in my alleyway 12-year-olds using this language.” She was told, “No, we can’t deny the students use that language.”

Flynn pulls herself up. She says she wanted to say: “You can’t deny that they’re having sex. Look at the statistics.”

Incline may get the message across anyway, with free Wednesday performances for teen-agers, their parents and friends at the theater.

Both Flynn and Henry hope “Raft of the Medusa” will break down some emotional walls.

“What makes me so angry,” Henry insists, “is when Magic Johnson announced that he was positive, I heard intelligent people that I respect, say, ‘Well, I really do think he’s bisexual.’ That mentality, that in order for him to have it, he has to be bisexual, that’s still there in so many people’s minds. It’s scary. That is ignorance. And our government has allowed that to go on.”