‘An extraordinary hour’: the explosive play re-staging the biggest TV clash of the Aids era

A New York production brings Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci’s 1993 debate to life in a masterclass of controlled fury On 30 November 1993, the Aids activist Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci , director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were arguing again. They argued a lot back then about the US government’s response, or lack thereof, to the Aids crisis. Fauci asserted institutional legitimacy. Kramer scolded that any institution presiding over a genocide doesn’t have any.

Kramer wanted to untie Fauci’s hands from politics and bureaucracy; Fauci wanted to de-escalate Kramer’s vituperous hand-wringing. They also ribbed each other, allies as often as antagonists. On the night they appeared on C-Span, the buttoned-up not-for-profit cable channel better known for unfettered congressional coverage than for the verbal pyrotechnics of CNN’s Crossfire, or the revelations-as-entertainment approach to politics by Oprah and Donahue. But this night was different. Journalist Steve Scully spent the hour trying to moderate Kramer and Fauci as they attacked…