STAGE REVIEW : ‘ROCK’ a Defiant Celebration of Gay Life

Michael Kearns has never had less than the strength of his convictions and the courage to present them to the world. Long before AIDS was even identified as a disease, Kearns was an actor who was not afraid to be openly gay on stage in a town less than hospitable to uncloseted homosexuals.

Rock Hudson, on the other hand, was a very closeted homosexual movie star whose AIDS-related death in 1985 shook the world into a sobering new awareness. With the proliferation of the epidemic, Kearns has become one of its most ardent and outspoken activists. For him, as he told an interviewer, “being an actor and being on a mission are very linked.”

One of the places the mission has taken him is into a series of AIDS-themed solo performances. The latest of these--”ROCK”--opened Friday at Highways. In it Kearns capitalizes on his 20 years as a gay actor in L.A. and, specifically, on a 1983 sexual incident with Hudson himself.

It’s the pivot for vignettes involving a variety of frank, intentionally graphic impersonations that include playing himself, Marilyn Monroe, a gossipy old lech and a kid from Arkansas who “comes out” when his mother drags him West to visit the ailing Hudson.

The impersonations and stories are humorously intermingled with trivia bytes from talk and infotainment shows on which Kearns has been invited to appear over the eight years since his activism began. These include a discussion of male prostitution with Tom Snyder, of Hudson’s death with the hosts of “Entertainment Tonight” and, most recently, with NBC’s Faith Daniels, of Kearns’ own HIV-positive status, which he made public last fall in the wake of the AIDS-related death of actor Brad Davis.

Seen at a special benefit Thursday, “ROCK,” directed by Kelly Hill, is more notable for its blunt, unsentimental candor and deep humanity than for the shock value of some of its more graphic verbal and visual depictions of male homosexuality (including, near the end, a vivid, no-holds-barred videotaped scene of group male sex).

Transitions between live and taped segments are still a bit rough, but even though Kearns’ honesty, passion and compassion are the dominant features and immensely moving in a closing display of affection, the hotness of the subject-matter, with its borderline sensationalism and explicitness, is not for all markets.

It’s easy to understand the reasons for the often brazen, sizzling nature of this show. Kearns wants to make sure that homosexuals neither take on guilt of their own for this disease, nor are made to feel guilty by the heterosexual world, and part of his strategy is a defiant celebration of gay life that includes those blazing descriptions of homosexuality in action.

But it is strong stuff, impossible to ignore, written and performed by a warrior in the field--an actor as much to be admired for his determined refusal to cave in to pain and discrimination as for his own clear grace under intense pressure.

“ROCK,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Fridays-Sundays, 8:30 p.m. Ends Feb. 2. $10. (310) 453-1755). Running time: 1 hour, 10 minutes.