As people commemorate ACT UP and examine its memory in public cultures, the 2011 revival of "The Normal Heart" (TNH) and the rhetorical labor undertaken to evoke political emotionalities inside and outside of the theater provides one site for analyzing how direct action politics, both past and present, are imagined as a kairotic response to HIV/AIDS. Recognized retrospectively as a harbinger of publicly defiant queer politics, including Larry Kramer's own participation in ACT UP, D. S. Lawson (2011) reminds individuals "the rage surfacing in contemporary protest groups (most famously in ACT UP) is already present" in "TNH". With the issues of memory, emotion, and politics in mind, the author first wants to revisit "TNH"'s initial reception to trace its evolution and remembered importance in AIDS culture. Having established this context, the author returns to the 2011 production to tease out some of the enactments of "TNH"'s emotional habitus. (Contains 25 notes.)