The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me is a semi-autobiographical, one-man show, written by Obie-winning actor and playwright David Drake.
[1] Broken up into a series of stories, Drake abstractly documents a gay man's journey of self-discovery, while also addressing the AIDS crisis that plagued the community in the 1980s.
The performer is portrayed at many different stages in life, from childhood, to adolescence, to adulthood, and travels through his personal timeline, from past, to present, to future.
He recalls sitting on the edge of his seat during a community theater performance of West Side Story, rapt by the excitement unfolding before him.
He sets off on a tangent, first about the paperweight he has bought his father for Christmas, then about catching lightning bugs with a friend, Janis, and playing with her Barbie Dream House, only to be interrupted by her bully older brother, Brad.
Soon, the cadence of his speech begins to resemble that of a military drill, and his words become aggressive, visualizing the war against homosexual people as violent and immediately threatening.
As he browses, he labels each man methodically, calling them by descriptive nicknames such as "Upbeat & Positive", "Cute & Cuddly", and "Gladiator Guppie".
Though the piece begins as lighthearted and vibrant, after the performer snorts drugs it quickly escalates to an aggressive, slurred-filled tirade, directed at a soldier in the back of the audience.
Towards the end, the slurs become violent and the performer pulls a hunting knife out of his pocket, according to the stage directions not as a weapon necessarily, "but rather as an abstract symbol of violence".
It is set at a candlelight vigil on a New York City street, and begins with the performer lighting a candle, which he carries throughout the rest of the piece.
First, he remembers his old neighbor, Gary, who used to bring him old belongings: a leather baseball cap, a beach towel, a picnic basket, a box of Gordon Merrick paperbacks, and many, many, tapes.
It serves as a beacon of hope for what the world might look like if the activism encouraged throughout the play is successful, including possible cultural references of a future in which homosexuality is more widely recognized and respected.
He also mentions the imprisonments of AIDS researcher Robert Gallo, antifeminist Phyllis Schafly, and conservative congressman William Dannemeyer, in addition to Ed Koch and Anthony Fauci's South American exile.
Paralleling MCarthyism, an anti-communism movement in US politics, gay and lesbian people were portrayed as security risks and communist sympathizers, leading to mass public and legal discrimination.
Still, homosexual people - gay men in particular - started demanding equal rights in the 1970s, and began to gain them in city's such as San Francisco and New York.
President Reagan failed to address the issue until six years after the first case of AIDS, though the rapid spread of the virus made it clear that the nation was in crisis.
Writing in the Washington Post in late 1985, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, stated: "It is surprising that the president could remain silent as 6,000 Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge the epidemic's existence.
In Michelangelo Signorille's foreword to The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, he theorizes that "perhaps ACT UP's greatest impact was its most subtle", as "a sort of finishing school for [those] who, through magazines, books, films, arts and theater, would take its powerful message far and wide in the years to come".
He explains how, "like Tony Kushner with his Broadway hit Angels in America, and like Kramer himself with his 1992 critically acclaimed play The Destiny of Me, David Drake is one of those who took that message to the stage.
[1] The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me has been performed independently nearly 100 times worldwide, in the US, England, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, France, New Zealand, and has also been translated into Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and French[1] In 1995, The New Heights Theatre in Houston, TX opened with a production of The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me.
[9] On May 20, 2013, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me returned to New York as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and Sero Project, in celebration of the play's 20th anniversary.
Taking place at John Jay college, this re-imagination directed by Robert La Fosse utilized an ensemble of actors rather than just one.
[10] After raising over $66,000, Tom Viola, executive director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, remarked that "the 20th anniversary performance was a moving, exhilarating success.