Daniel Fish Recreates 1993 Fauci-Kramer AIDS Clash in Verbatim Stage Drama
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Oct 5
Daniel Fish Recreates 1993 Fauci-Kramer AIDS Clash in Verbatim Stage Drama
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 5
Summary
Daniel Fish’s “Kramer/Fauci” restages a Nov. 30, 1993 C-SPAN call-in show verbatim, turning Anthony Fauci and Larry Kramer’s televised fight over a new HIV/AIDS task force into theater.
Four actors deliver the original dialogue through in-ear feeds, with Will Brill as Fauci, Thomas Jay Ryan as Kramer, Jennifer Seastone as callers and Greig Sargeant as host Steve Scully.
Fish departs from literal reenactment by sending the cast across St. Ann’s Warehouse in disorienting staging—bright lights, roller skates and an inflatable chicken suit—rather than recreating the Washington studio.
The review says that abstraction sharpens, rather than dilutes, the 1993 confrontation, channeling Kramer’s fury and Fauci’s calm into a broader portrait of the AIDS-era political battlefield.