REVIEW: As Is, Trafalgar Studios ✭✭✭✭

As Is

Trafalgar Studios 2

4 July 2015

4 Stars

Book Now

The man in the hospital bed is ill. Very ill, as it happens. It's New York in the 80's and AIDS is an incurable killer disease. And he has it. This sweet, attractive, genial man is dying.

His jock brother surprises with a visit. He is tall, fit, the all-American boy next door type. Straight and disconnected from his brother, from his emotions. He wears a mask and is in anti-infection gear. He is clearly afraid of AIDS, scared that somehow his brother will infect him.

He brings a card his daughter made for her Uncle. It wishes him a speedy recovery. The patient takes it badly: there will be no recovery. The brother is ill at ease. They fight. The patient is angry about the brother's failure to understand his life, his situation, his imminent death. The brother is confused, hurt, unable to deal with the heightened emotions.

Then something breaks - and the brother suddenly sees the patient for who and what he is. His dying brother. His kid brother, who grew up with him, well on the way to shrugging off his mortal coil. The brother embraces his sibling patient with a desperation borne out of embarrassment, fear, uncertainty and simple love. They hold each other, silently; a powerful, meaningful embrace.

Awkwardly, the hospital attendant interrupts. He wants to warn them that the patient's long term lover is heading back to the ward. He wants to avoid...a situation. It's the patient who realises first. The one who is dying sees the funny side before any of the healthy ones do. Cue a lot of genuine laughter.

This is As Is, William Hoffman's 1985 play, generally acknowledged as the first play in the world to tackle the subject of the AIDS crisis, a revival of which, directed by Andrew Keates, is now playing at Trafalgar Studios 2. It's a belated transfer, with a mostly new cast, of Keates' successful 2013 production at the Finborough Theatre. Since that time, Keates himself has become HIV+ and an outspoken and committed ambassador for modern AIDS awareness. Those experiences inform and underline his direction here and, as a result, this production pulses with more life, more humour, and more honesty than the earlier incarnation at the Finborough Theatre.

Hoffman's play was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, and won both Drama Desk and Obie Awards. It was, at the time, an important, ground-breaking work. The Normal Heart followed about a month later, and it was 8 years before Angels In America debuted. In the thirty years since As Is premiered, much of the ground it first broke has been well trodden, thoroughly considered. In some ways, this dilutes the effect of As Is; in other ways, time has sharpened the resonances of the play precisely because they are intensely personal, desperately human.

Viewed one way, Hoffman's play is not a play about AIDS and its repercussions; it is a play about ignorance, discrimination and fear. Viewed that way, it is still a play of enormous power and relevance. Indeed, viewed as an AIDS play it is still an important piece - the research today suggests that levels of misapprehension and misunderstanding about AIDS are almost as high now as they were in the 80's.

Keates understands all this and calibrates proceedings to ensure the greatest overall effect. Key to this is the casting of Steven Webb in the central role of Rich, the gay man who leaves his long term lover for a younger, sexier model, only to contract AIDS and face up to a harsh set of consequences, relief from which comes from the lover he has abandoned.

Webb is an excellent, intuitive actor. He makes the somewhat glib, superficial character of Rich completely three dimensional. You laugh with him, smirk with him, sneer with him and, ultimately, cry with him. From the beginning, his Rich is completely comprehensible. You might not meet a character like his Rich on the streets of London, but he seems perfectly understandable as part of the tapestry of New York, where style, superficiality and surface are incredibly important.

The relationship between Webb's character and Dino Fetscher's Brother is beautifully observed by both. Fetscher's incomprehension of his brother's lifestyle and situation is credibly and thoroughly conveyed, with the result that the moment when the brothers lower their barriers, and accept each other, is enormously powerful, truly affecting.

The programme notes Hoffman saying that:

"Consequently, for a long period, my central characters, Rich and Saul, were shadowy and undeveloped, compared with the background figures."

The background figures in this production are all sharply realised. From Jane Lowe's spiky Hospice Worker to the various roles played by Natalie Burt, Bevan Celestine and Russell Morton - all are etched with distinction and flair. There are many comic moments; many moments of savage honesty.

Curiously, the two central lovers to Webb's Rich, David Poynor's Saul and Giles Cooper's Chet, are the least effective portrayals here. Neither seems worthy of Webb's complicated, multi-faceted character. Poynor's Saul has the right appearance but the core of the character seems awry; Cooper's Chet is unaccountably dull, when he should be quite the opposite. The truth, which sharply defines Webb's portrayal, as well as the performances of the various support roles, is strangely absent in both; there is too much "acting" and not sufficient "being".

The space in the smaller studio is utilised well by Keates and Tim McQuilen-Wright's ingenious set proves to be several things at once: appropriately period, hauntingly claustrophobic, and all-encompassing: many and varied locations are easily evoked. Neill Brinkworth lights proceedings sensitively and unobtrusively, creating very effective light and shade.

Albeit after a slightly slow start (Poynor's character has a molasses effect at the out), this is an absorbing portrayal of fear, love and tragedy - and the roller coaster ride is worth the investment.

As Is Runs At Trafalgar Studios until 1st August - Book Now