Highly charged male patrons dance rhythmically to New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle. It is the 1980s and the AIDS epidemic is the sleeping giant that will irrevocably change the world.

Larry Kramer’s pioneering, semi-autobiographical play The Normal Heart, about the AIDS epidemic in New York, premiered four decades ago and was met by a polarised world, heavily under the influence of prejudice and misinformation. The central character, Ned Weeks (Mitchell Butel) is based on Kramer’s lived experience. He rages against the extraordinarily slow response of his community and the gross apathy of the media and politicos to report on and fund AIDS research.

Mark Saturno and Mitchell Butel in The Normal Heart, State Theatre Company South Australia, 2022. Photo © Matt Byrne

Elegantly directed by Helpmann Award-winner Dean Bryant, this ambitious production is a detailed examination of the establishment and operation of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis support group, over a four-year period as they attempt to make the world pay attention. Despite being dotted with humour, this is a dark script, crammed with details of a frenetic, desperate and terrifying time.

Set and costume designer Jeremy Allen captures the era perfectly and paints it on a canvas of an expansive and interesting stage. A medical examination room juxtaposes various offices framed with peeling paint – the visual metaphor a stark reminder of the incompetencies ahead. The tribal uniforms of the community, recognisable to today’s audience, unite the close-knit group, who passively watch the on-stage action when they are not the central focus. It creates a brilliant, if occasionally distracting dynamic.

Integral to this on-stage observing ensemble are pianist Michael Griffiths and cellist Clara Gillam-Grant, whose superb musical interstitials – a combination of Hilary Kleinig’s original compositions and arrangements of New Order et al – are knitted seamlessly with sound designer Andrew Howard’s vision, to create impressive layers of interludes and accompaniments.

Despite the tragic subject matter, the cast are a joy to watch. There are outstanding interactions throughout and the momentous centrally positioned scenes are where this production really shines. When Mark Saturno as Ben Weeks and his brother Ned (Butel) face off in the admission of guilt scene, the powerful interchange is superlative.

Anthony Nicola, Evan Lever, AJ Pate and Matt Hyde, The Normal Heart, State Theatre Company South Australia, 2022. Photo © Matt Byrne

Evan Lever gives a moving performance as Mickey Marcus, and the volunteer’s frenetic office phone calls scene is brilliantly executed. Anthony Nicola plays Tommy Boatwright, who does a wonderful job putting the camp into campaign.

Emma Jones owns the role of pivotal authority figure, Dr Emma Brookner. If previously the storm had been building, this giant of a character unleashes hell during the passionate solo scene as bureaucratic paralysis tips her over the edge. Jones is absolutely glorious.

The Normal Heart is a beautifully rendered romance, but it is not without cracks. The portrayal of the flawed relationship between Ainsley Melham as Felix Turner and the damaged Ned Weeks (Butel) is poetically heartbreaking. The performances are exceptional.

Opening night saw a few clunky scene changes, and some imperfect accents were occasionally not convincingly native, but nothing could dampen the enthusiasm for this impressive piece.

First produced in New York in 1985, The Normal Heart was an aggressively polemical drama. Decades later, the spectacle is not lost, but the context has changed. Viewing can no longer be done from the political platform on which this story was first told. Whilst parallels will no doubt be drawn to our current medical crisis, the rallying cry and imminent rage of The Normal Heart has altered significantly since its initial presentation.

Mitchell Butel and Ainsley Melham, The Normal Theatre, State Theatre Company South Australia, 2022. Photo © Matt Byrne

No longer a vehicle for awareness of AIDS as an under-researched, time-delayed killer, the desperation contained within has a completely different context. There are no visuals of emaciated, formerly healthy friends gasping for air, who slowly expire from a fate worse than death. There are not the personal connections audiences would have had at the time, which would surely have been terrifying (it ran for 294 performances). Medical advances and the passage of time have all but removed us from the brutality of the vileness and abject tragedy of death by AIDS.

We are extraordinarily lucky that lessons were learned from the mishandling of the AIDS crisis and as a result, we came better equipped to the current pandemic, and hopefully, will to those of the future. Some aspects of the script are however, a painful reminder that the more we learn, the less we know – it still smarts to hear the (other) F word. There are less painful reminders too that suffering and compassion are common to all plights and inextricably linked to the emotion we all share – love.

The Normal Heart runs at the Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre until 15 October. More information here.