June 4, 2011 | Arts / Entertainment

Talking HIV on the stage

A play is being staged in which men talk about living their lives with HIV, but The Infection Monologues is not about bringing the audience down.

“We don’t see a lot of contemporary HIV depictions,” explained playwright Alex Garner. “We don’t see people feeling empowered and confident, saying they’re HIV-positive and proud of it.”

The show is premiering at Los Angeles’s Renberg Theatre this weekend. The characters range from a 30-something man who just ended a relationship with a positive partner, to another man who lost his husband to AIDS in the 1980s and then discovers that now at the age of 50, he himself has contracted HIV.

Garner, an L.A.-based actor and writer, was infected 15 years ago at the age of 23. 

“I got HIV right before protease inhibitors happened, so I had this unique experience of straddling the fence in terms of the epidemic,” Garner says. “I received my diagnosis when you still thought you could die in 10 years. Then protease happened and the whole world changed overnight.”

And Garner promises quite a few laughs. 

“There’s a lot of comedy in it,” Garner said. "I want audiences to be entertained first and take something away secondly. I want them to find humor in a subject matter that has too often been relegated as taboo. It’s rare for us to see the experience of positive people depicted in art, specifically on film, television and theater, in a way that isn’t sad or is this sort of cautionary tale, so I think for positive people it will be quite refreshing to be able to see themselves depicted in a very honest, complex way."

Not Your Mom's Monologues [The Advocate]

"Infection Monologues" to Make L.A. Debut [Edge]