STAGE REVIEW : ‘As Is’ Captures Delicate Balance of AIDS’ Horrors

When they write the definitive history of the ‘80s, William Hoffman’s “As Is” will have to be considered one of the cultural milestones--not because the play is the best of the decade or the most innovative or even the most eloquent, but because it captures both the beginning and end of an era, freezing the moment in time when the horror of AIDS set in as a social reality.

And it does so with such deft skill that it has the compelling urgency of a living document, while always maintaining a buoyancy that keeps us entertained. Without ever devaluing the suffering or the rage that AIDS inevitably brings in its wake, the play transmutes despair into gallows humor, and dread into pathos. Hoffman’s considerable wit as a writer has been to achieve a delicate three-way balance between comedy, tragedy and--for lack of a better term--explanation.

In 90 swift minutes at the Forum Theatre here, this production by the South Orange County Community Theatre sketches in the lives of Rich (Dan Millington) and Saul (Mike Moon), a gay New York couple who have recently broken up. Rich, a writer who has just published a collection of short stories, has gone off to live with a new lover named Chet. Saul, a photographer, is still living at the old apartment and still in love with Rich.

After watching them bicker over a division of their possessions--the cat, Aunt Billie’s hooked rug, the collectibles, the Barcelona chair and “the world’s largest collection of Magic Marker hustler portraits”--we soon learn in a quick collage of scenes with a chorus of doctors, relatives and friends that Rich has been diagnosed as having acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Saul is shocked. One of their friends recently died in San Francisco. Another, whom he has just visited in the hospital, is in the terminal throes of the disease. “The good news,” Rich says “is that I have only swollen glands.” The bad news, of course, is that he is experiencing denial. The next is fear and bitter anger, then self-pity--”Why me?”--and finally, with Saul’s comforting acceptance of him “as is,” the inevitable descent toward death.

What makes the play so affecting is that while the characters are caught on the brink of disaster, they never descend into sentimentality. Hoffman goes out of his way in the writing to deflate any special plea for sympathy. And both leads give sterling performances. Millington brings a taut clarity to the role of Rich, while Moon infuses the role of Saul with vivid warmth.

Two scenes alone are worth the price of admission. One, in a hustler bar, satirizes the homosexual mating dance of a pair of leather-clad clones named Chuck and Chad. “Thought you were this guy Chip I met here on Jockstrap Night,” Chad says. “Haven’t been here since the Slave Auction,” Chuck says. The other scene, at an AIDS hot line office, is also brilliantly funny. (Jon Taylor Carter is a scream.)

Other members of the cast who lend support in multiple roles are Bart Story, John David and David Napier. Particularly good are B.J. Scott, whose monologues as a hospice worker tuck the play into context, and Ardis Faith, who is gorgeous as the leggy knockout, Lilly. Sandy Silver’s direction keeps the pace of the action flowing nicely.

A final note: “As Is,” the winner of a 1985 Drama Desk Award and three Tony nominations, earned the distinction last May of being banned in Garden Grove, where another community theater dropped plans to produce it under pressure from a member of the City Council who objected to its content. We ought to be grateful. Without Garden Grove’s craven censorship, this fine amateur production might never have been mounted.

‘AS IS’

A South Orange County Community Theatre production of “As Is.” Written by William M. Hoffman. Directed by Sandy Silver. Produced by B.J. Scott. With Dan Millington, Mike Moon, Jon Taylor Carter, Ardis Faith, Bart Story, John David, David Napier and B.J. Scott. Through Feb. 10 at the Forum Theatre, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Performances are Thursdays to Saturdays at 8 p.m. and a matinee Feb. 4 at 2 p.m. Tickets: $10. (714) 248-0808.