The long-awaited London premiere of the play by Larry Kramer

The Destiny of Me is the companion play to Kramer’s critically acclaimed The Normal Heart, a massive hit at the Royal Court and the Albery Theatre in 1986. The two plays are an autobiographical account of one man's campaign to get AIDS taken seriously. Ned Weeks, now HIV positive, checks into an experimental treatment programme run by the very doctor that his militant protest organisation has been criticising most. Faced with his own mortality, Ned finds himself swept back into memories of childhood, trying to understand how he got to be who he is now. . .

Larry Kramer is the world’s best known gay playwright and activist. In 1981, with five friends, he founded Gay Men’s Health Crisis, now the world’s largest AIDS service establishment, and in 1987 he founded ACT UP, the AIDS advocacy and protest organisation. He was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of D H Lawrence’s Women In Love starring Glenda Jackson. His play, The Normal Heart, holds the record for the longest running production at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater in New York. The British premiere at The Royal Court in 1986 starring Martin Sheen broke all box office records before transferring to the West End.

For the past decade, Larry Kramer has refused the performance rights for The Destiny of Me in London. It now premieres at the Finborough Theatre after being commissioned from Drew Ackroyd by Artistic Director, Neil McPherson. The Destiny of Me is directed by the exciting young director Drew Ackroyd and produced by Elizabeth Freestone who formed Productions Absolute in 2001 in order to support new directors working on contemporary plays.

The Destiny of Me was the runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, won an OBIE, the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play and the Hull-Warriner Award of the Dramatists Guild.

US PRESS ACCLAIM FOR THE DESTINY OF ME
"Overwhelmingly powerful...scaldingly honest... A juicy three-act memory play in the mode of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams....A seismic jolt of theatricality" Frank Rich, New York Times
"What Kramer captures expertly is family relations in their ambiguities, hostilities and reconciliations.... A kind of - and this is meant as praise - Jewish-homosexual Long Day's Journey into Night." John Simon, New York

The Press on The Destiny of Me
Nicholas De Jongh Recommends - No 1 Critics' Choice, Evening Standard Hot Tickets - Three Weeks Running
1. The Destiny Of Me. Finborough Theatre.
2. Vincent In Brixton. National Theatre.
3. Kiss Me Kate. Victoria Palace.
4. Abigails Party. Hampstead.
5. Via Dolorosa. Duchess.

"This shattering drama of family relations and recriminational matches the emotional extremities of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey into Night and Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman. Drew Ackroyds superlatively acted, powerhouse of a production electrifies the little Finborough stage with fierce passions and pain, while sardonic Jewish humour lightens and brightens the dramatic load. His tragi-comedy, much admired in New York, but shamefully rejected by leading theatres over here" Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard

"Larry Kramer, the famous American AIDS activist and writer, produced this riveting, autobiographical family drama more than ten years ago, when he thought himself about to die of the syndrome. But hes still here. And this memory play, about the pains of growing up gay in Fifties Americas and the long-term emotional havoc caused him by his Russian-immigrant Jewish family, is an emotional knock-out. Kevin Colson and Amanda Boxer bring the physically abusive father and possessive mother to superlative tragicomic life. Daniel Hart and Chris Andrew Mellon are just as affecting" Nicholas de Jongh, Hot Tickets.

"The Finborough Theatre is host to the London Premiere of a big play - Larrys Kramers autobiographical The Destiny of Me. Director Drew Ackroyds terrific production bursts with some of the best perfomances in the capital. Ackroyds direction is nothing short of brilliant. This is a wonderful production of an excellent play that should have opened in London a long time ago" John Nathan, Jewish Chronicle
"In 1986 Larry Kramers The Normal Heart defined the gay play for a whole generation. Now his ambitious follow up, which was written more than 10 years ago, finally gets its London Premiere in this confidently directed production by Drew Ackroyd. Emotionally powerful, psychologically convincing and touchingly autobiographical with excellent performances by Chris Andrew Mellon as Ned, Daniel Hart as his younger self and a superb Amanda Boxer and Kevin Colson as his parents, this is a thoroughly engrossing and thought-provoking play. Congratulations to the Finboroughs Neil McPherson and producer Elizabeth Freestone for giving London audiences the chance to see yet another example of American playwriting at its finest" Aleks Sierz, The Stage

"A rich, absorbing family drama. An extraordinary evening" Verena Winter, Theatre Record

"The Destiny of Me is a big play performed with great attack in a tiny space. A remaking of the great American play in the light of AIDS. The drama of generational guilt - the drama of Eugene ONeill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller - in which anger and a sense of being cheated rumbles down the ages, is reinevented. Daniel Hart is outstanding. This British Premiere is a coup for the director Drew Ackroyd and for the Finborough" Susannah Clapp, The Observer

"Larry Kramer's greatest play" The Telegraph

"Its wry humour, intelligence and utter conviction engage. The production yields some fine acting. Amanda Boxer illuminates the stage like a perpetually spinning Catherine Wheel" The Times

"It has taken ten years for Kramer's heartfelt sequel [to The Normal Heart], The Destiny of Me, to finally now reach London since it was first seen in New York in 1992, though it hits even harder and deeper and more personally. A wrenching study not just in facing up to the virus but in facing up to yourself. The result is a big, brave play about a big, brave man, and the Finborough's superb production does it full justice. Theres a magnificent performance from Amanda Boxer as the mother, and good ones from the rest of an excellent ensemble cast." Mark Shenton, BBC Radio

"After an inexplicable interval of some years, the sequel and prequel to Larry Kramer's excellent play The Normal Heart has finally been staged here in London, not in the West End where it truly belongs, but at the excellent Finborough Theatre in Earls Court. The Destiny of Me is a lightning strike of a play. There is, what I would have thought an impossible scene to stage at the Finborough, where in the hospital the older Ned goes into shock through his revolutionary and innovative treatment while at the same time the entire family erupts in a vicious and violent quarrel. Why should I think this could not be staged at the Finborough when after all we have had the entire American dustbowl staged there in the past? It is certain you will have to go a long way to see a play, production and cast with such expertise as this." Paul Nelson, IndieLondon.com

"It is remarkable that The Destiny of Me has not received a UK Premiere before now, nearly a decade since it was first performed in the United States. And this may be a late Premiere for London, but the issues that the play addresses remain largely unresolved. Drew Ackroyd's production is full of the power and sympathy that the subject deserves." Michael Caines, Theatreworld Internet Magazine

"Amanda Boxer's gloriously executed Jewish mother is an unmitigated joy to behold, and Christ Andrew Mellon and Kevin Colson deliver beautifully crafted performance. This play packs a vital, incisive political punch". Lucy Powell, Time Out

"The Destiny of Me, receiving its London Premiere at the Finborough Theatre, has taken nine years to reach us from New York, which seems inexplicable, given Kramers fame and the quality of the play. Excellent perfomances - Kevin Colson brings dignity and fragility to the role of the father; Amanda Boxer offers a masterclass in Jewish mothers; Chris Andrew Mellon, as Ned, is wholly convincing, whether delivering sharp-tongued commentary or being overwhelmed by despair; and Daniel Hart's moving portrayal of the confused teenager points up the intimate link between flamboyance and vulnerability. Hidden away at the Finborough, Drew Ackroyd's production of this compelling play deserves wider notice." Hal Jensen, Times Literary Supplement