Alan Bowne
Encyclopedia
Alan Bowne was an American
playwright
and author
. He was a member of the New Dramatists.
He wrote a number of plays including Beirut, Forty-Deuce, Sharon and Billy, and The Beany and Cecil Show, many of which are available from Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
.
He also wrote one novel Wally Wonderstruck. He died of complications related to AIDS
at the age of forty four.
.
The film is a dystopian science fiction
thriller set in the near future in a more authoritarian America
. It deals with the social persecution and criminalisation of people who are infected with a sexually transmitted disease
similar to HIV
. Those who test positive for the disease are forcibly placed into quarantine
camps. In the quarantine camps they are tattooed with a P by the authorities to indicate their positive status and shot if they try to escape. The quarantine camps are dilapidated places where patients are left to die without care or contact with the outside world.
Moira Kelly
plays Blue a young woman who earns a living scavenging metal in the city. She goes with a friend who wants to be tested to a Helping Hand clinic. The clinic has the sinister slogan "Making your hard choices easier". Outside the clinic they are given a card warning them against getting tested there. The card demands "Why is sickness a crime? Why is hospital a prison? Why does the helping hand hold a gun?". Blue is disturbed by this warning and meets an activist in the resistance called Torch played by Cuba Gooding Jr.
The resistance works to prevent the quarantine of those who are positive. They arrange testing outside the official system so that they will not be quarantined. They rescue people being held by the Helping Hand clinic in order to give them medicine, care, and understanding. They distribute condoms and clean needles to help prevent the spread of the disease. This is contrasted with government advertisements for the Helping Hand clinics that threaten "The only way is not to play".
A relationship develops between Blue and Torch and it is revealed that Torch is positive. Torch is arrested because of his activism and when the police discover that he is positive they send him to quarantine. Blue sneaks into the quarantine in order to see Torch. Blue wants to be infected by Torch so that they can live together inside the quarantine camp but Torch is reluctant to infect Blue. This central scene in the movie is the only scene in the play Beirut upon which the film is based. Blue could be considered an early fictional heterosexual example of a bugchaser.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. He was a member of the New Dramatists.
He wrote a number of plays including Beirut, Forty-Deuce, Sharon and Billy, and The Beany and Cecil Show, many of which are available from Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
Broadway Play Publishing Inc, along with Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, Inc., and Samuel French Inc., is one of the four major New York play publishers and licensors of stage rights...
.
He also wrote one novel Wally Wonderstruck. He died of complications related to AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
at the age of forty four.
Daybreak/Bloodstream
Alan Bowne's play Beirut was adapted to the TV screen as Daybreak (Bloodstream) (1993) starring Cuba Gooding Jr and Moira KellyMoira Kelly
Moira Kelly is an American actress. She is best known for playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"...
.
The film is a dystopian science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
thriller set in the near future in a more authoritarian America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It deals with the social persecution and criminalisation of people who are infected with a sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
similar to HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
. Those who test positive for the disease are forcibly placed into quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
camps. In the quarantine camps they are tattooed with a P by the authorities to indicate their positive status and shot if they try to escape. The quarantine camps are dilapidated places where patients are left to die without care or contact with the outside world.
Moira Kelly
Moira Kelly
Moira Kelly is an American actress. She is best known for playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama One Tree Hill. She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me"...
plays Blue a young woman who earns a living scavenging metal in the city. She goes with a friend who wants to be tested to a Helping Hand clinic. The clinic has the sinister slogan "Making your hard choices easier". Outside the clinic they are given a card warning them against getting tested there. The card demands "Why is sickness a crime? Why is hospital a prison? Why does the helping hand hold a gun?". Blue is disturbed by this warning and meets an activist in the resistance called Torch played by Cuba Gooding Jr.
The resistance works to prevent the quarantine of those who are positive. They arrange testing outside the official system so that they will not be quarantined. They rescue people being held by the Helping Hand clinic in order to give them medicine, care, and understanding. They distribute condoms and clean needles to help prevent the spread of the disease. This is contrasted with government advertisements for the Helping Hand clinics that threaten "The only way is not to play".
A relationship develops between Blue and Torch and it is revealed that Torch is positive. Torch is arrested because of his activism and when the police discover that he is positive they send him to quarantine. Blue sneaks into the quarantine in order to see Torch. Blue wants to be infected by Torch so that they can live together inside the quarantine camp but Torch is reluctant to infect Blue. This central scene in the movie is the only scene in the play Beirut upon which the film is based. Blue could be considered an early fictional heterosexual example of a bugchaser.