“The Normal Heart,” which first opened off-Broadway in 1985 at the height of the AIDS epidemic, ran for a year, stirring up controversy.  With the 2011 Broadway revival, Kramer made revisions to the text, included in the present edition.  A recent HBO adaptation deviates significantly from the text of the play and though well cast, is considerably less powerful.   At eighty, Kramer is considered a far less polarizing figure than he was when the play was written, and it is perhaps easier now to appreciate the play as a work of art.   One might be tempted to dismiss it as a polemic.  However, the author makes it clear in his choice of title (taken from an Auden poem) that what the piece is really about is a man and his search for love - his quest for a “normal heart.” The epidemic is merely the background for his personal transformation.  Indeed, Kramer has created in Ned Weeks a character of real dimension, in the tradition of Greek tragedy.  Other characters are less convincingly drawn, at times sounding more like mouthpieces for Kramer’s ideas than flesh-and-blood people.   In all, this is an excellent example of literature as medical advocacy.  It’s an enduring play that will outlive the rants of its author to serve as a reminder of those apocalyptic early years of the AIDS epidemic.