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Bent
Author(s): Martin Sherman
On June 29-30, 1934 (the Night of the Long Knives), Max and his lover Rudy begin a nightmare odyssey through Nazi Germany, which on that night began a campaign to exterminate gay men. Max refuses to abandon Rudy. After they’re caught, while in transport to Dachau, Rudy is killed and Max horrifyingly broken. In Dachau, consumed by self-loathing, he begins a journey towards redemption, made possible by the love of another inmate, Horst. Max learns to love in return and, in summer 1936, thereby to accept himself and to come out as gay, an identity which he has denied. Inevitably doomed, both men refuse to submit to the Nazis and die defiantly.
Format: Drama
Cast Size: 11M
Snapshot
Notes:
For additional reading, see Gene A. Plunka, Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 236–243.
See Tish Dace’s book, Martin Sherman: Skipping over Quicksand, Jefferson, NC & London: McFarland, 2012, as well as Dace’s essay Why Bent Now (2014)? in our Insights section.
Original or Prominent Production: Royal Court Theatre, London, May 3, 1979
Original Language: English
Publisher:
Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Concentration and Extermination Camps | Other Victims of Nazi Persecution