Bent

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.

Original or Prominent Production:
Royal Court Theatre, London, May 3, 1979

Original Language: English

Publisher:

Applause Theatre and Cinema Books

Experience(s) Chronicled: Other Victims of Nazi Persecution | Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Concentration and Extermination Camps