Playwright: Dan Noonan
At: Northminster Church's Logan Hall, 2515 Central Park Ave., Evanston
Phone: ( 866 ) 468-3401; $15
Through July 10
BY SCOTT C. MORGAN
Fighting wars on multiple fronts weakened many a nation throughout history. The same could be said of Out Among the Dragons, an earnest world premiere play showing the battles faced by those living with HIV and AIDS by Chicago-area playwright Dan Noonan.
Officially billed as a comedy, Out Among the Dragons is really more of a semi-autobiographical drama spiked with generous amounts of humor. As a hemophiliac infected with HIV by a blood transfusion in the 1980s, Noonan clearly knows all about living with the disease and its many issues that rightly deserve dramatization. Unfortunately Noonan's play takes on too much: homophobia, victimization worthiness, self-loathing and closeted shame are just a few touched-upon topics.
Out Among the Dragons centers on Patrick ( played by Joel Mehr ) , a 20-something HIV-positive hemophiliac heterosexual virgin out looking for love. Shy, unmotivated and largely in the closet about his HIV status, Patrick slowly learns to open up with help from Joe ( Joe Sherman ) , an engaging HIV-positive gay teacher whose organizational and life-betterment skills would make him an ideal cast replacement for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Set in 1995 and 1996 before and after life-extending drug cocktails of protease inhibitors became available, Out Among the Dragons depicts Patrick and Joe's urgency to make good on life goals. Joe wants to make a difference by educating young people about HIV prevention; Patrick would mostly like to get laid.
This odd-couple friendship would have been great by itself as a variation on the stereotypical buddy movie where the goal is to give the milquetoast guy a complete makeover so he can bag the dream girl. But Noonan builds up other primary and periphery characters who aren't fully developed or believable. They ultimately dilute the play's power and narrative focus.
Though Patrick's HIV-positive love interest Marie ( Mary Bliss Mather ) gets more stage time than the typical object of affection, the glimpses of her angry and bitter character still give her the short shrift. Noonan could easily have built an entire play to Marie's own struggles.
Noonan also seems uncertain about Patrick's mother ( severely closeted about her son's HIV status ) and Patrick's estranged Irish father ( Michael Denini ) . They're both given prominent roles or speeches, but their emotional journeys feel hastily drawn and dramatically unsatisfying.
Even more loose ends appear with the North Shore socialite Trudi who revels in being Joe's 'fag hag.' We never learn what becomes of Trudi after she ultimately betrays Joe, nor do we find out what happens to Joe when he goes off his meds following this fallout. Perhaps Noonan wants to show that life is messy and sometimes without solutions, but that makes for a very disappointed audience wanting concrete answers.
If Noonan's play still feels a draft or two away from being complete, at least most of the performances and the physical production under the direction of Sarah Whitney have the gloss and sheen of finished pros as seen at a preview performance. There are a few wrong acting notes ( Mary Becker's comedic misfiring as Patrick's loopy mother and the excess pushing of Jane Andrea Noles' Trudi ) , but otherwise everyone else is engaging and likable. Especially of note are Roy Hine's sleek set design of sliding screens and John Salyers' costumes that look like they belong more in an Equity off-Loop theater than in their actual church basement setting.
The war on HIV and AIDS is far from over thanks to growing apathy, ignorance and greed. The messages Noonan has to share in Out Among the Dragons are timely and important to build people's awareness about the disease. But you still wish that Noonan could have packaged and processed them better before delivery.