One Couple's Intense, Immersive Struggle for Intimacy

In a fictional New York, sexually transmitted disease carriers are quarantined in concentration-camp-like imprisonments.

An old mattress and a semi-nude partner are all London Bauman (Torch) and Tiana Tuttle (Blue) need to provide the captivating and visceral performance of Beirut at The Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven.

Set in a New York where a sexually transmitted plague (which is an obvious metaphor for HIV) is being combatted with strict quarantine zones and a ban on sex, Torch, an infected man, and Blue, his uninfected girlfriend, struggle to make their relationship work. They alternate between moments of extreme aggression—such as when Torch throws Blue around the room in frustration, or when Blue tells Torch to "die alone"—and deep displays of love. Blue massages Torch's dying body, and the couple struggles with an overwhelming urge to be intimate, knowing that it would mean a painful death for Blue.

An extremely moving production, Alan Brown's Beirut brings together the horrors of a disease that can ravage your body with lesions with quarantine zones that are essentially concentration camps.

The line between stage and audience becomes increasingly blurry in the tiny Eastside Industrial theater space. The action takes place within a small circle of onlookers, getting in your face physically, as well as emotionally.

The Steep and Thorny Way To Heaven, SE 2nd Ave between Madison & Hawthorne, 8pm Friday-Sunday May 27-29, 8pm Thursday and Saturday June 2 & 4, 7pm Friday June 3. $10-$18.

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