The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.)
October 3, 1997

Play inspired by AIDS Memorial Quilt celebrates life
RICK MATTINGLY, Special to The Courier-Journal

Theater review 'Quilt - A Musical Celebration'

Next Performances: University of Louisville Playhouse. Today and tomorrow, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.

As grim as some of the stories it tells may be, ''Quilt - A Musical Celebration'' ultimately makes a positive statement about life.

The play was inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was conceived in 1987 and now contains more than 45,000 panels honoring people who have died from AIDS. The show, which is being produced locally by New Girl Productions, opened last night at the Playhouse Theatre at the University of Louisville's Belknap campus.

With a cast of 27 actors, the play is a patchwork of songs, monologues and skits that explores the wide reach of the AIDS epidemic. As it honors people who have died from AIDS, the production shows that AIDS includes among its victims the families, friends and lovers of those who have died.

While quite a few of the people honored by the play contracted AIDS as a result of homosexual activity, there is also a scene involving a couple whose child died of AIDS due to a kidney transplant and a woman who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion, passing it on to her unborn child.

There is also the story of a gay man who did not have AIDS, but was killed because of the fear, prejudice and hatred that AIDS has caused.

Characters in the play display a wide range of responses to AIDS, including anger, depression, hope and denial.

But in the end, the play isn't so much about the horror of AIDS as it is about the value of life. These people aren't being remembered by a quilt (or a play) because they died, but because they lived, and because they touched the lives of others.

The characters in the play include a flaming transvestite, a fundamentalist who refuses to accept that her son was gay and a little girl whose parents didn't want her spending too much time with her gay uncle.

Although most of the stories are unconnected to each other, two characters appear several times in the course of the show. One is an HIV-positive man named Wes whose gay lover has already died of AIDS and who is contemplating suicide. The other is a heterosexual girl named Karen who fell in love with a man who she didn't realize is gay.

Michael J. Drury as Wes and Deanna Kreutz as Karen give the production a lot of its heart. Sharon Murray, who portrays Roberta, the woman who got AIDS through the blood transfusion, delivers a memorable performance, as does local singer Gayle King, who portrays a nurse who befriends an AIDS patient.

''Quilt - A Musical Celebration'' is described as a ''remembrance of those lost and a tribute to the spirit of the survivors.'' Proceeds benefit AIDSWALK, Ky.