An HIV-positive diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence in 1993, when playwright Steven Dietz wrote “Lonely Planet,” a look at gay men in the second decade of the AIDS epidemic. And big cities, with their often large gay populations, were being hit especially hard.
In the two-character piece – beginning a four-week run at the BlackBox Theater at Watertown’s Mosesian Center for the Arts on February 3 – 40-something map store owner Jody and his friend Carl, a man in his early 30’s, are faced with these harsh realities every day in their Manhattan neighborhood.
Both men are dealing with the AIDS crisis, but in different ways.
“Carl is very affected by individual losses and also by the growing number of them in the community. For him, the situation calls for mourning together and separately, and mourning in bulk, too,” explained Tim Spears, who plays Carl, by telephone recently during a rehearsal break.
“Jody, on the other hand, has started to become overwhelmed by what’s happening. The enormity of it all has caused him to retreat to the point where he almost never leaves his store.
“Carl believes that it is very important to be near your village at a time of crisis, so he very much wants Jody to stay involved in the community,” says the Somerville resident.
Until Carl can make his friend venture back out into the world, he continues to pay Jody regular visits.
“They have a very strange relationship. It began when Carl was a frequent customer in Jody’s store and, over time, developed to the point where they became very much best friends,” according to Spears.
While acknowledging that Dietz did not specify the play’s location, the 34-year-old says the New Repertory Theatre and Boston Center for American Performance (BCAP) co-production is clearly set in New York’s Greenwich Village.
“The store doesn’t have a clear time or setting. And the words ‘gay’ and ‘AIDS’ are never directly mentioned. We’re celebrating the play’s 25th anniversary, but it definitely still resonates today because of the very human themes of love, friendship, and community.
“It is very much like something that might have been written post-9/11,” says Spears. “It asks important questions, like ‘How do we survive after something gigantic and unexplainable comes along to change our lives?’ and ‘How do we move on?’”
The Texas native – who has previously appeared at New Rep in “Good,” “The Elephant Man,” “Amadeus,” and “Mister Roberts” – does know he has no plans to move on from is his longtime friendship with fellow actor Michael Kaye, who plays Jody.
“Michael and I have done about 10 shows together over the past decade. We know each other’s vulnerabilities and how to support each other – knowledge we can connect to these characters. And I can see so much of Michael in Jody,” he says.
Spears, who earned his BFA in acting and an MFA in directing at Boston University, was an undergraduate when he first met Kaye.
“Michael was one of my teachers at BU and I also took over a staff position from him when he moved to the faculty,” says Spears of his co-star.
According to Spears, he and Kaye, now an assistant professor of acting at BU, enjoy long relationships with New Rep Artistic Director Jim Petosa, who is also director of the School of Theatre at the BU College of Fine Arts.
Petosa established BCAP, the professional production extension of the BU School of Theatre.It is joining with New Rep to co-present “Lonely Planet” – in repertory with Athol Fugard’s “Statements After an Arrest Under the Immorality Act,” also featuring Spears – as part of the “Statements of Survival” series.
“Jim is a mentor and friend to both Michael and me. Jim has had an important impact on both of us as actors and theater artists,” says Spears. “When we work together, that gives us an unspoken vocabulary.”