A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International...
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
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.
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
Royal Court Theatre, London, May 3, 1979
Royal Court Theatre, London, May 3, 1979
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Publisher:
Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Concentration and Extermination Camps | Other Victims of Nazi Persecution
HTC Insights
Views, reference and research of interest.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Jewish Theater Foundation presented its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Alfred Uhry. The presentation took place as part of the Lincoln Center Library event on January 27th 2025 in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 30, 2024, French playwright, Mr. Jean Claude Grumberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by NJTF HTII President, Arnold Mittelman with Dominique Trimbur, PhD-Manager for the History of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Teaching of the Holocaust of Fondation Pour La Memoir de la Shoah Project.