Patient A, Profile Theater (One Night Stand Reading)

Writer: Lee Blessing
Director: Bruce Hostetler
Cast:
Kimberly  .....  Amy Newman
Lee   .....   Todd Hermanson
Matthew   .....   Matthew Sa

sez says:  Given Blessing's large body of work I am not sure why this play was picked for a reading. It is dated and it does not work to make universal the problems that are brought to the surface when people are frightened.  This was written early in the early days of the AIDS Epidemic.  It is about a young woman who was infected with the AIDS virus by her dentist.  The story could have lifted itself up if it had dealt with humans as fragile and easily frightened --and capable of cruelty when kindness is called for.  But it somehow never gets to a place past dealing with AIDS specific issues.
Possibly the whole problem was not with the play but with the reading instead, The play presents a poem that is read in parts --while the story is being told.  Todd Hermanson was the reader of the part / he is playing a writer/ who is drawing on the poem to understand the situation..but he read it so quietly we could not hear much of it.  So...not knowing what was in the poem / or only hearing part of it / made the poem burdensome to the reading.
Meanwhile Amy Newman and Matthew Sa did a fine job holding up their ends.  Generally we like Hermanson, and he would have seemed a likely candidate for this character, but he was weak here.  We all have bad nights. 

MJC Says: made in 1984, missed the potential exploration of the interconnectedness of humans --unless it was in the poem I couldn't hear.