College Article 02: Bent
Educating the World:
‘Bent’ by Martin Sherman
***** out of 5 stars
(A+)
Play/Historical
80 pgs.
In 1979, when ‘Bent’ premiered on the London stage, people were outraged, shocked and just couldn’t believe what they were seeing - that homosexuals were persecuted during the Holocaust.
The playwright, Martin Sherman, wrote the lead of “Max” specifically for British actor Ian McKellen (of “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” fame) who saw the importance of this play, being homosexual himself.
It takes place in Berlin, the night after Ernst Röhm was murdered and ends in the concentration camp Dachau.Max is a playboy homosexual disowned by his rich family because of the way he chooses to live. But when he and his lover, Rudy, are caught by the Gestapo after running for two years, Rudy is brutally tortured [as most homosexuals were]. Then Max is forced to kill him with his own hands or be killed himself.
On that same train to the camp Max meets a prisoner wearing a pink triangle, Horst. That symbol is what denotes him as a homosexual, just as the yellow star of David denoted those that were Jewish.
Horst tries to tell Max how to survive, having been a prisoner longer than Max, but Max ends up buying himself a yellow star - having to prove in a terrible way that he isn’t “bent” - while Horst will continue to tell him how he is a pink triangle and shouldn’t deny it to save his life.
Despite their fighting they fall in love and even have a sex scene on-stage entirely with words, ending with both of them having an orgasm. Many thought that this scene was done purely for shock-value, but it was actually done to prove a point: that even though they couldn’t touch or even look at each other - they could feel. They were still humans and not the monsters the Nazis made them out to be.
The playwright doesn’t sway from that, he doesn’t apologize and doesn’t hold anything. There is a sense of urgency in the play - that this information that has always been considered too taboo - must be told before anyone can silence it.
But, even today, this play cannot be found in bookstores or libraries.
Bottom line: A shocking and unforgiving look at what has gone unspoken and ignored for far too long.
*originally written Nov. 30, '06