Reverse Transcription

It is difficult to review Reverse Transcription, an evening of plays covering AIDS and covid, as theatre. The first piece, Robert Chesley's Dog Plays, is a story of despair and death written by a despairing and dying playwright. The second, A Variant Strain, written by Johnathan Adler and Jim Petosa as a continuation of the first, brings the AIDS-stricken main character into the days of covid. These plays depict deep pain, grief, and loss, and they are vivid reminders, if any are needed, of the tragedy of AIDS-related and covid-related deaths. I honor the emotions of these plays and I am sorry for everyone's losses.

Johnathan Tindle, James Patrick Nelson
Photo: Stan Barouh

However, and this is the dicey part, watching these plays was a deeply unpleasant, abrasive experience unmitigated by art or insight. The playwrights' anger lashed out at the audience, and I kept thinking, "What the fuck did we ever do to you?" Rather than inviting the audience in, the pieces put up blockades of blame and manipulation. 

Attacking your audience with loud, endless speeches and unremitting rage is not good writing, at least in my opinion. (Though some of the speeches were truly excellent.) How about a little humor? Warmth? Likeability? Look at Angels in America, The Normal Heart, even Boys in the Band. There are genuine people in those plays, not just spewing mouthpieces. It was pretty much impossible to feel involved and sympathetic at Reverse Transcription, except for the brief scene shown above, where the admirable Johnathan Tindle brought a depth and sensitivity otherwise missing in the evening. 

I agree that the shows' creators have the right to produce exactly what they want to produce. I agree that anger is a legitimate topic for theatre. I agree that AIDS was an unimaginably horrible agent of destruction. I think every day of my friends who have been dead half my life and all they have missed. But those plays being in the audience's faces for two hours added nothing to our existence or understanding and, well, cost us those two hours.

I realize as I write this that I was angry watching the plays and am angrier now. Maybe this means that Reverse Transcription was actually successful. I don't know. But I sure don't recommend that you go and see it.

Wendy Caster