Charles Ortleb

Susan Sontag as Metaphor: A Docuplay by the Author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic Cover-up Charles Ortleb

One day soon, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome crisis will be coming to Broadway.
This explosive play by the author of The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic Cover-up captures the complicated relationship he had with the celebrated intellectual, Susan Sontag. Charles Ortleb met Susan Sontag in 1973 at a gay conference in New York City. He was twenty-three and she was forty. Ortleb had recently moved to New York City and like many aspiring young writers at the time, was fascinated by Sontag. He couldn't believe his luck when she agreed to do an interview with him for a new magazine called Out. This is the first time that interview will reach a major audience, and there is one dramatic moment in which it almost seemed like Sontag was trying to come out of the closet. After asking a number of probing questions about her work, Sontag said to Ortleb, "You don't miss a thing, do you?"The play turns dark and disturbing as Ortleb describes his subsequent two meetings with Sontag in the late 70s and the late 80s. Ortleb, who ultimately published a newspaper and became the first publisher to take AIDS and Chronic Fatigue seriously, met with Sontag when she was working on her book about AIDS and warned her that his newspaper's reporting suggested the government was not being truthful about the nature of AIDS. The last time Ortleb saw Sontag, she hugged him and said, "You're very real to me."Ultimately, Sontag not only did not listen to his advice, but she went out of her way to indirectly attack Ortleb and his newspaper in her book AIDS and Its Metaphors. Ortleb is finally speaking out about this shocking development that occurred decades ago. Ortleb's discussion of Sontag's betrayal of their friendship and ultimately of the gay community, raises new issues about Sontag's character which many are now questioning. The play will dramatically change the way the public looks at AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Susan Sontag.