ENGL 2609H Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Paul Popham, Tony Kushner, Sander Gilman
18 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
Performed off-broadway before its 2011 broadway premiere, kramer"s play nonetheless is credited, more than any other single cultural product, [with spreading] the politics of aids to a mass audience (john d"emilio). Viewing the play as a call to action, he personally distributed an open letter after each show targeting institutional indifference toward hiv/aids. Jeremiadic persona that defined kramer in his everyday dealings (this comes across in the clip of the tv interview on blackboard and in the documentary, how to survive a plague, in case you"re interested. Aids represents not only in the gay world, but in the research world, the pharmaceutical world and the united nations. The play is sometimes dismissed as political, polemical propaganda more concerned with its message than its artistry, essentially as agitprop (russian propaganda-art). It was performed in the 1980s on a stripped down minimalist set with whitewashed walls.
