This is a special crossover Office Hours & Skirball Tapes crossover – Catharine Stimpson interviews Daniel Fish.
The fact that Larry Kramer and Anthony Fauci eventually considered each other friends is at odds with their early interactions, which include a 1988 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle that calls him not only a murderer but an “incompetent idiot” and a Kramer-penned flyer distributed by ACT UP at a dinner honoring Fauci: “Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer… you should not be honored at a dinner. You should be put before a firing squad.” (You can read the full flyer here.)
Larry Kramer was the co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). His grief and rage at the lack of adequate response from the US government (and for years, the lack of any response at all aside from mockery) was not abated by Fauci’s initial work on AIDS, which was a marked improvement than the initial official policy which more or less amounted to cheering the virus on; but Fauci is still inadequate, and this pressure from ACT UP is enormously influential in pushing for more effective resources in education, prevention, medication and messaging. Arguably, ACT UP’s work was instrumental in achieving any kind of resources for a disease that was largely, wrongly seen as just deserts for immoral, unnatural gay lifestyles.
Anthony Fauci‘s continued prominence as the face of public health for two once-in-a-lifetime, world-changing pandemics (will he go for a hat trick?) means that many audience members may know him in a very different context than the adversary of righteous queer activism. A markedly different open letter to Fauci, published in McSweeney’s for Passover 2020, starts with an apology – “I’m really sorry to bother you … You’re busy saving the world on four hours of sleep” – and reflects Fauci’s position as a benevolent, trusted figure. Revisiting this history, as we continue to grapple with the ongoing public health crises of both of these viruses, is an opportunity to consider the weight of history in our own lived experience, and the power of our shared rage and grief against the open hostilities we face from our government.
The performance “Kramer/Fauci” is based on a 1993 debate between Kramer and Fauci on C-SPAN, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. We’ve put together some resources on AIDS activism, plus interviews with Kramer and Fauci throughout the years. Go down the rabbit hole – there’s so much to read, this is just a starting point. Plus, a new interview with Daniel Fish – the Tony Award-winning director bringing their 1993 encounter to the stage in this world premier work.
Office Hours
Get Into It
If you’re going to watch one video on this page, make it this one: Larry Kramer on Anthony Fauci in 1993: “I want to say something about Tony Fauci because I think the world must think I hate him, the way I’m going on tonight. I love Tony. I think I probably have a more complicated relationship with Tony than anybody in my entire life. … He has been this incredible fighter for us and for AIDS. I just get angry when he puts on this bureaucratic suit and out comes this boilerplate… all this rhetoric that doesn’t mean anything. … Tony more than anyone in this world knows how awful everything is, knows what has to be done, knows that he should have been given a lot more money to do it, knows who all these terrible people are, and yet he can never say it in public like I can say it in public.”
Get Thee to the LIbrary
Recommended readings to get you in gear for the show.
Anthony Fauci, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service (2024).
David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS (2016).
Larry Kramer, Reports from the Holocaust: The Making of an AIDS Activist (1989).
Sarah Schulman, Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993 (2021).
Randy Shilts,
Read All About It
The New England Journal of Medicine | Jan 27, 2021
Audio Interview: A Covid-19 Conversation with Anthony Fauci
“I would have paid a lot of money for that test.”
Vanity Fair | Oct 1992
Kramer Vs. Kramer
Kramer is the grand old man and central figure in the decade-long history of AIDS advocacy in this country.
Bookforum | Jan 2017
"How to Survive a Plague" Review by Cynthia Carr
One turns the pages of this book thinking if only, if only, if only.
New Yorker | May 28, 2020
Obituary: Larry Kramer by Masha Gessen
He had the courage to imagine the implications of the things he feared, to act on his fear, and to demand that others imagine and act with him.
Listen, Watch and Learn
A 2021 Radiolab story: “we hear from AIDS activists who put their bodies on the line and from the man they burned in effigy, Anthony Fauci.”
“I have no doubt in my mind those fucking drugs are out there because of ACT UP. And that’s our greatest, greatest achievement.” – Larry Kramer
The ACT UP Oral History Project is an incredible resource of accounts from hundreds of activists, detailing their experiences in the organization to the project’s co-coordinators Sarah Schulman and Jim Hubbard – as Schulman puts it, “Here we are. Here’s what we did. Here’s how. Here’s why. In our own words.” Spend some time cruising the archives. There’s plenty of notable participants – including Larry Kramer, who sat down for an interview in 2003 – and deep dives into specific actions, groups, gossip, and reflections on failures and successes.
