We are happy to announce that this year’s last HIV Reading Group will be a screening of ‘Reza Abdoh: A Documentary Film’ by Adam Soch, which documents the life and work of Iranian-born theatre maker Reza Abdoh.

Credited by one reviewer as having created ‘one of the angriest theatre pieces ever hurled at a New York audience,’ Abdoh employed an experimental, often frenzied, avant-garde dramaturgy to explore the response to the early years of the AIDS crisis within the US.

No stranger to scandal, Abdoh often incorporated scenes of nudity, profanity and violence within his work not just to shock audiences, but as a means to protest the legacies of Ronald Reagan’s administration. Indeed, Abdoh shone a light on the destructive powers of neoliberal governance throughout the ‘80s, taking aim, for example, at the pharmaceutical industry’s hostile response to the AIDS crisis in Bogeyman (1991), one of his most critically-lauded works.

Although Abdoh died from AIDS-related causes in 1995 at the age of 32, he left behind a significant theatrical legacy that is only just being rediscovered through the work of documentarians such as Adam Soch. Whilst a number of early AIDS plays such as Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, William Hoffman’s As Is, and, most famously, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America continue to undergo mainstream revivals on both sides of the Atlantic, the unique experience of watching one of Abdoh’s live plays has largely been confined to memory.

In returning to Abdoh’s work almost three decades after it graced the stages of New York, therefore, we are able to reassess its impact on the genre of HIV/AIDS theatre and the development of avant-garde dramaturgies more broadly. 

The screening will be introduced by Louisa Hann, currently writing her PhD at the University of Manchester on representations of HIV/AIDS in contemporary theatre, and will be followed by a wine reception.

The screening will take place in the Samuel Alexander Theatre, from 4-6pm on the 11th of December. All are welcome!

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