Moving and Poignant, APT's 'Casey and Diana' Mixes Laughter and Tears

Anne Siegel, Shepherd Express

It has been three years since Nick Green’s powerful play about AIDS, Casey and Diana, had its world premiere at Canada’s famed Stratford Festival. The play earned numerous awards and was mentioned on many critic’s lists as one of the 10 best plays that year. Now the play joins the 47th season of American Players Theatre in Spring Green. It continues through September 24 in the 200-seat indoor Touchstone Theatre.

As the play opens, a pair of hospital beds, a portable tray on a stand and a rug are all that can be seen of Casey House, Toronto’s first stand-alone hospice for AIDS patients. In 1991, the staff welcomed a real-life visit by Princess Diana.

There’s one small exception. One sees a small model of the house itself, poised at the front of the stage. The tiny replica is soon moved to a less visible spot, but the audience has a good idea of the place where Canadian HIV/AIDS patients once came to die.

Milwaukee theatergoers may recall that another of Nick Green’s plays, Dinner with the Duchess, was part of Next Act Theatre’s spring season. The play, about the retirement of a virtuoso violinist, starred the well-known actor, Laura Gordon.

In terms of Casey and Diana, theater patrons with vivid memories of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic will recall the fear and misinformation swirling around a new and horrifying illness. For a long time, doctors didn’t have a lot of answers. For those who tested positive, the prognosis was one that nobody wants to hear. Many of those with HIV/AIDS were young adults with their whole lives ahead of them. They never expected that their future would be cut so short.

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