Plan-B to put on 'Patient A'

Prolific playwright Lee Blessing is probably best known for such works as "A Walk in the Woods" (1986), "Going to St. Ives" (which was produced by Salt Lake Acting Company a few seasons back), and "Eleemosynary," a 1985 drama that was staged locally in 1991 at the Broadway Stage (now the Off Broadway Theatre).

Plan-B Theatre Company is doing one of Blessing's newest works — "Patient A" — in the Studio Theatre of the Rose Wagner Center. The company's artistic director, Jerry Rapier, is directing.

The one-act drama, which runs slightly over one hour, focuses on the controversy surrounding the death of Kimberly Bergalis, who died in 1991 at the age of 23, allegedly from AIDS contracted from her dentist, Dr. David J. Acer, who was bisexual and HIV-positive.

Rapier, in a telephone interview, noted that "Patient A" is a provocative blend of reality and fiction.

Blessing — who was commissioned by the Bergalis family to explore Kimberly's case and turn it into a drama — becomes part of the story himself as an observer.

"Her family was aware of Blessing's work and commissioned him to write the piece as a way of honoring their daughter," Rapier said. "Blessing had a lot of gay friends who had died of AIDS and he wanted to reconcile that with Kimberly's death."

Rapier noted that "Patient A" is a non-traditional script in that occasionally the characters discuss why they're in the play.

"It's like we're eavesdropping on Blessing grappling with the subject," Rapier said.

In researching the piece, Rapier found references to a couple of productions that had a woman playing the Lee Blessing role.

"We got permission from Blessing for Anita Booher to play the role. She has a certain natural gravity that works very well with the play," he said.

The cast also includes Colleen Lewis as Kimberly and Logan Miller as Matthew, a character who represents a composite of gay men Blessing knew who have died from AIDS.

Rapier said the setting for the play will convey a clinical, antiseptic environment as well as the isolation of having to deal with HIV at the beginning of the epidemic in the early 1980s.

"There is so much more that we know now that they didn't back then. We're trying to replicate just a glimpse of what that felt like," he said.

Rapier noted that Bergalis impacted many people.

"Her case is the reason that dentists (and other medical caregivers) wear masks and disposable gloves," he said.

Bergalis was the first reported case of doctor-to-patient transmission of HIV.

Rapier noted that controversy still surrounds the Bergalis story. There has been ongoing debate over whether or not she actually contracted the virus from her dentist.