Oscar Isaac shirtless, sweating, and desperate in a 1980s plague lockdown? Sign me up.
How do we sustain the human spirit, hope and love in the face of a plague? Set in a dingy Lower East Side apartment in the 1980s, Beirut follows the story of Torch, a young man who is in quarantine after testing positive to a nameless disease. His girlfriend, refuses to leave him isolating alone. It’s raunchy, it’s real, it’s poetic; and it reminds us of the power of stories, and their role in fostering hope, solidarity and documentation of extraordinary times.
Acting
Tomei and Isaac claw at each other with terrifying vulnerability.
Writing
Dialogue that howls—poetic, profane, and painfully urgent.
Production
Shot mid-pandemic; meta-textual sweat drips through every frame.
Director
Paul Wontorek
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Originally a 1987 play by Alan Bowne, written during the AIDS crisis—this 2020 virtual revival accidentally became documentary.
MCC Theater's pandemic pivot: actors filmed from separate locations, their desperate reaches toward each other literally impossible.
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