A Journey Back

The role that brought Joe Mantello back to acting was a long time coming. (NYT)

If every actor or director has one play that resonates more than other works, Mr. Mantello’s is “The Normal Heart.” It prompted him to join the Gay Men’s Health Crisis as a buddy, bringing in food trays that were left outside hospital room doors for AIDS patients. (The founding of that organization generates much of the arguing in the play.) It was a touchstone as friends died of AIDS. It led him to eschew canonical works for performing in new, red-blooded plays like Tony Kushner’s gay epic, “Angels in America,” which earned him a Tony nomination for best featured actor in 1993 as the tormented, self-centered Louis.