Type – Remount, Drama, Mardi Gras
If you liked – The Destiny of Me by Larry Kramer, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by Tony Kushner
The Normal Heart: An unmissable production; not a period piece, but a live wire
The Sydney Theatre Company production The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer is an unmissable production of a play that lands not as a period piece but as a live wire. Written in 1985 at the height of the AIDS crisis, the play chronicles the early years of the epidemic in New York City and the furious, grief-soaked activism. It is urgent, muscular theatre that refuses to sit quietly in history and mirrors the world outside the doors of The Drama Theatre.
Kramer’s thinly veiled alter ego Ned Weeks sits at the centre of this show. He is abrasive, brilliant, impossible, and absolutely right. Sydney Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Mitchell Butel, delivers a performance with electric precision. His Ned is both a flamethrower and a wound, a man whose rage is born from love and terror in equal measure. As he attempts to rally a community still revelling in newfound liberation, Butel balances confrontation with flickers of vulnerability.
The ensemble of characters that surround Ned operate like a pressure chamber pushing, pulling, and lifting him up through this show. There was almost no weak point in this casting, with some knock out performances of the incredible writing that makes up this play.
Emma Jone, as Dr Emma Brookner, grounds the play with a balance of steely pragmatism and compassion was a clear stand out. Her act two monologue about institutional indifference landed with chilling clarity and emotional power. Additionally, Evan Lever as Mickey Marcus displayed a huge range of emotion and dynamic culminating in his act two breakdown, which was raw and unbridled in the best way.
Direction by Dean Bryant understands that The Normal Heart is not subtle theatre. It is argumentative by design. Rather than smoothing its edges, this production leans into the text’s volatility and reflective nature allowing the scenes of activist infighting to feel painfully contemporary, echoing modern debates about strategy, respectability and urgency. One of the most striking sequences occurs during the long awaited meeting with the mayor’s assistant in act two, where overlapping dialogue and clever blocking create a sense of community fracturing in real time.
Jeremy Allen’s design elements support the text without overwhelming it with a clean but effective hospital/industrial set. The scene transitions were swift, cohesive and made good use of space and cast without distracting from the message of the show. The use of musicians and live music in the show was a welcome surprise. It effectively underscores the sense that this was a community in crisis and that community housed people of all kinds. Lighting shifts from warm domestic tones to clinical harshness, visually charting the narrowing world of the characters. Costume design subtly marks the period without tipping into nostalgia; this is the 1980s, but the aesthetic never becomes costume drama.
The beauty of a play like this in the Drama Theatre is the proximity between actors and audience intensifies everything. The writing and performances held the audience’s undivided attention which meant coughs, tears and sharp intakes of breath rippled through the room for all to see. The most obvious of these was the reveal at the end of act one. Although by the final scene, when each performer comes to the front in protest, the silence is almost sacred. Applause arrives not as release but as recognition of the incredible journey and story that has been told.
Is The Normal Heart Worth Seeing in Sydney?
Ultimately, this The Normal Heart is a reminder that theatre can be both memorial and megaphone. It stands as a testament to the power of queer storytelling, and to the fact that we should not have to wait forty years for works like this to return to our stages. It also affirms the strength of Australian theatre and the companies bold enough to stage such necessary work.
Sydney Theatre Company has mounted a production that honours the lives lost while challenging complacency in the present. It is fierce, heartbreaking and necessary.
Tickets and Practical Info for The Normal Heart in Sydney 🎟️
Book by Larry Kramer, Directed by Dean Bryant
9 February – 14 March 2026 at The Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Tickets: Tickets | The Normal Heart
