I watched this play at the Grove Theatre Eastbourne on 10th April 2026.
The play explores issues surrounding the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. This is dramatised through two separate and interlinked stories.
The first involves Joe Pitt, a married Mormon Republican-voting lawyer living in New York who cannot summon up sexual enthusiasm for his wife, Hannah, because he is struggling against his fundamental homosexuality which his church tells him is sinful. She, unloved and frustrated, pops pills and hallucinates. To intensify his dilemma, he has been offered a job in Washington by Roy, a closeted gay man recently diagnosed with HIV, who seeks power through influence without worrying about ethics: his motto is you can be nice or you can be influential.
The second story is about Prior, last descendant of a family that dates back to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, who has progressed to the Karposi’s Sarcoma stage of AIDS, and his partner Louis who finds himself challenged by sickness to the point of abandonment of his dying partner.
The reality of the story is embellished with fantasy figures including two of Prior’s ancestors, both of whom died from their contemporary plagues, a hallucinated travel agent, the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, a Russian spy famously executed by electrocution in 1953, an eskimo in Antarctica and an angel.
I think it is one of those stories whose popularity lies more in the issues explored than in the writing. I found it a bit wordy. I know, I know: that is a ridiculous criticism from someone who writes novels. And loves Shakespeare plays. But it was prolix. Perhaps the problem was that three of the main characters worked in the legal profession, not known for being laconic, and wanted to argue for and against every proposition they encountered. Perhaps Americans are given to describing their problems at length. There was one moment where Louis, in a bar, analyses democracy in a fluent stream of words to which his interlocutor Belize, a nurse and drag queen, replies “Aha” which suggested the playwright was self-satirising until Belize responds with a speech about racism which is almost as long. Perhaps the reason for the logorrhea was that the play wanted to encompass not just the AIDS epidemic but also Reaganism, political corruption, religious intolerance, racism, and anti-semitism, an enormously broad canvas. The effect was exhausting. They certainly talked the hind leg off this donkey. And the other effect was that the play was long. The total length of the performance, which included two intervals, was over three hours. Given that the Grove team presented Richard III last year in a severely truncated version, I was surprised that they hadn’t pruned this play.
On the other hand, the acting was of an impressively high standard, among the best I have encountered from the team at the Grove. There were no disappointments. Good performances included Bowie Alexander as Prior, Phil Sherrard as his partner Louis, and Leigh Hollidge as Joe Pitt. Several of the cast were good in multiple roles: Bianca Eichler was great both as a Mormon estate agent and also a homeless New Yorker, Eleanor Stourton impressed as Joe’s mother Hannah, and as a Rabbi, and as the ghost of Ethjel Rosenberg. Miah Jumbo’s performance both as Belize the drag queen nurse and as Mr Lies the travel agent was delightfully flamboyant.
Alyssia Smith both as Harper, Joe's wife, and as a Washington insider who looked and sounded like Donald Trump, and Michael Shepherd as ethics-free Roy Cohn delivered outstanding performances.
The technical team supported the actors superbly: lighting and sound were flawless and costume and make-up perfect.
Overall, I have my reservations about the script but the production was magnificent.
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