Beirut, the play, will be hitting the performance halls of California with an apocalyptic story of sex, nudity and STDs:

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and no one feels fine. Instead, the people who have contracted—or merely tested positive—for an AIDS-like plague are quarantined in a prison camp set up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, while those who have tested negative are watched relentlessly by “sex cams” to make sure that they don’t engage in any “risky” behavior. That means sex, and by extension, love.

So where does Beirut fit into this? Well other than the title of the performance, Manhattan’s Lower East Side where the infected people are piled into is called Beirut. So not only is our city considered a battlefield the world over, we now need to take on the director, Bill Voorhees’, view of Beirut as what, a sex-crazed, STD infested dump? Or was Beirut chosen as an appropriate name as, to the director, it signifies hopelessness, despair and destruction? I’m only speculating. However, as Kel Munger, the drama critic put it:

The real plague in Beirut is dishonesty, fear and silence.

I’m thinking “Looks Like Beirut certificates” all around – though I might need to change the text slightly to match the circumstance.

Scene from Beirut: Torch has tested positive and is confined to a graffiti-strewn room in the quarantine area called “Beirut.” He longs for Blue, the not-quite lover he left on the outside, who remains negative.