Chicago Sun-Times
September 16, 1996

AIDS memorial quilt gives birth to memorable musical
BY HEDY WEISS

Quilt: A Musical Celebration
Through Sept. 29
At the Athenaeum Studio Theatre, 2936 N. Southport
Tickets: $ 10-$ 15
Phone: (312) 935-6860

Recommended

A heartfelt exploration of human relationships triggered by the AIDS quilt.

Memorials most often take the shape of bronze sculptures or marble slabs. But the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt provides a whole new model for remembering the dead -- one that is far more personal and idiosyncratic.

"Quilt: A Musical Celebration" is the poignant, multifaceted show inspired by this handmade memorial. Now being staged by Dolphinback Theatre, the production brings yet another dimension to the original project.

The quilt began to take shape in San Francisco in 1987, when a man named Cleve Jones started creating 3-by-6-foot cloth panels to remember the 1,000 San Franciscans who had died of AIDS in the previous seven years.

Very quickly, friends and relatives of the ever-increasing number of dead began to make their own contributions to the work, and today, the quilt is a nationwide creation containing 45,000 panels. In fact, on Oct. 11-13, after 10 freight-train boxcars carry it to Washington, D.C., and 10,000 volunteers gather to assemble its 15 city blocks' worth of fabric, the massive textile memorial will be displayed on Capital Square.

The show, too, is an intriguing patchwork, with a book by Jim Morgan, Merle Hubbard and John Schak and a strong score by Morgan (lyrics) and Michael Stockler (music). Composed of individual "panels" of testament and remembrance, it becomes as much a tribute to the spirit of the survivors -- parents, children, siblings, lovers, friends -- as to those being remembered.

The show, which has been affectingly directed by Ray Gabica and the Dolphinback team in the intimate Athenaeum Studio Theatre, is framed by two ensemble numbers. The cast of 25 begins by singing "out of something terrible there is something beautiful" while hanging a large mock version of the quilt, and it closes with a candlelight vigil. In between, we hear dozens of stories.

There is Paul (Martin Hurm, in a fine performance), a young man who kept a distance from his gay brother but tried to compensate after his death by helping another AIDS victim, Juan Ramirez, an ex-addict. There is Pauline Polaski (the forceful Rachel Singer), who refuses to accept that her son is a homosexual and threatens a lawsuit if the quilt panel made by his lover is displayed. There is the young girl, Katy (Carolyn Ann Nelson), who mourns for her beloved uncle. There is the accepting mother, Mrs. D'Angelo (Colleen Mitchell), whose son escaped AIDS only to be beaten to death by homophobic thugs. There is the nurse (Marie Vlasin), who fell in love with a doctor who turned out to be gay. And there even is an intriguing counterpoint to "Angels in America" focusing on Roy Cohn.

The show would benefit from a trim (a clumsy puppet show at the end of the first act could easily be excised). But, amazingly, there is very little repetition in these stories, and the actors bring great fervency to their roles so that even when their voices are sometimes shaky, the emotion compensates. Kevin Hartshorn's musical direction (with piano accompaniment by Deborah Abramson and Margo Schwartz on synthesizer) is first-rate. And by the end of the show, the patches on this quilt have been transformed into real people.