For many, AIDS was the plague before Covid—and a far more devastating one. LOVE & SCIENCE wants to tell the story of how AIDS began and progressed—it’s written by a scientist!—but it fails to even nearly approximate the terrors of that time. The play—more a (barely) dramatized timeline—is entirely unbelievable; there's not a convincing person or circumstance on the stage. Two young gay med students meet cute as AIDS manifests and spreads. What follows is as facile and shallow as that sounds, a desultory attempt at playwriting (not a science). Seeing Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' trenchant and invigorating--and partly though vaguely related--new play the night before maybe amplified the misery of this one.
I thought there were two strong scenes, which had very little to do with the "dramatized timeline." When the AIDS crisis prompts one of the two leads into "going straight," he's schooled about his selfishness by two wry, smart women. But most of the play is barely dramatized exposition.
