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Dated theme sinks political playBy JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic© St. Petersburg Times published January 9, 2003 ST. PETERSBURG -- The times have changed since The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me was a long-running off-Broadway hit. David Drake's monologue, which the playwright originally performed, is a gay coming-of-age tale that ranges from boyhood fixation on musical theater (all those male dancers in West Side Story) to the Stonewall riots to narcissistic workouts at the gym. Underlying the veneer of camp and charm is deep-seated anger about AIDS. Today, being HIV-positive is not the virtual death sentence it was when the play premiered in 1992, at least not where medical treatment is readily accessible, and the disease has spread far beyond the predominantly gay crisis it once seemed to be. Carl Lerer doesn't manage to overcome the dated aspects of Drake's play in the production directed by Jeffery Kin at Central Stage Theatre. The gay lifestyle material holds up pretty well -- segments on pumping iron and hedonistic back-room sex are the strongest -- but the politics fall flat. That is a fatal flaw, because The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me is mostly a political play. The title is a metaphor for the protagonist having a life-changing experience at a performance of Kramer's early AIDS play The Normal Heart. Too often, the narrative takes on the rhetorical rant of a rally by ACT-UP, the coalition founded by Kramer to demand government action on the epidemic that devastated a generation of gay men. With a beefcake build, Lerer has plainly put in many hours at the gym, and he is a bit of a tease, stripping down to nothing but his Calvin Kleins in onstage costume changes. The play is relentless in probing gay culture's obsession with looking good. It characterizes the passion for bulging biceps and washboard abs as a won't-get-bashed-again mentality, a kind of call to arms to fight the "straight oppressors." Lerer is at his best in "12-inch Single," a mesmerizing sketch on the freaky male sexuality that was part of the disco scene. He is much less persuasive when he puts on a nightgown and assumes the mawkish role of a little boy who plays with dolls. "A Thousand Points of Light," an elegy to men who died from AIDS, makes graceful use of candlelight, reflecting off the corrugated metal of the set. Unfortunately, this touching section segues into a vision of New Year's Eve 2017 that stretches credulity. It includes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck playing the Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford parts in a remake of The Way We Were and a couple sending their children to Harvey Milk University. The comparison of gay liberation to the civil rights movement isn't justified. The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me has some good moments, but it ends with a clunk. REVIEW: The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me by David Drake runs through Feb. 9 at Central Stage Theatre, St. Petersburg. Tickets: $18. (727) 327-7529.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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