To answer the much anticipated question for those who were not able to attend the play, “Beirut,” yes, there was nudity involved.
Now the focus can be redirected to the actual play. The Theatre Fairfield presentation, an independent project sponsored by the Jamie A. Hulley Fund for the Arts, was held at the PepsiCo theatre on Jan. 21, at 8 p.m.
“Beirut,” a 1987 off-Broadway drama by Alan Bowne, is an allegory for the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1980s, when myths and mystery of the viral disease were feared by many people.
Bowne’s apocalyptic vision of the “near future” is governed by a totalitarian regime that created a dystopia infested with disease. People were tattooed with a “P” if they tested positive for the disease and people tested as negative were hung if caught crossing over the border of Beirut, which is located in New York City’s Lower East Side, not Lebanon.
After 15 minutes of blasting rock music and a sudden lights-out curfew, Torch (Jared Mezzocchi), a disease-paranoid Brooklyn boy is introduced in nothing but his birthday suit.
After dragging around a grubby one-room apartment for five minutes, Blue (Lauren Satos), a bi-polar Queens girl, flies through the door to surprise her quarantined boyfriend. However, in this post-plague world where diseases destroy every last hope and dream of civilization, the two are forbidden even to touch each other.
Blue constantly seduces Torch with her sexuality and finally settles on a “dry kiss-it’s a new thing.” The important question throughout the play is, will they or won’t they?
This, with the play’s many other flaws, draws attention to weaknesses in dialogue, in which the play’s forced imitation of working-class realism creates an unreal quality. Also, the dramatization of the characters was overdone, making it comparable to a bad soap opera.
Unfortunately, the flaws continued with the plot. Torch and Blue met only once at “Club Pyramid,” which led to their failed sexual attempt. The first question that comes to mind is whether this relationship is driven by love or lust. Secondly, Blue’s psychological well-being might be questioned considering her devotion to a stranger from a night club who is marked with an incurable disease.
Along with this list of imperfections, the play was a cliché from plot to wardrobe. Torch, infected with the disease, was in black boxers and Blue, who was negative, dressed in white underwear.
Despite its cheap, soft-core, low-budget porn quality on stage, this other version of “Rent” (without the musical numbers) went haywire. Instead of drilling on the minor blemishes, “Beirut” can serve as a reminder of what kind of isolation and discrimination humans are capable of given its worst conditions.
Living in the 21st century, HIV and AIDS are more real than ever before. “Beirut” provides an alternate reality that should be avoided.
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