Strong Bent for Theater

The lights come up on a small flat, complete with sofa, coffee table, and plants. The room could be anywhere, at any time. The bickering conversation that follows between a hung-over Max (Hans Vermy ’02) and an obsessively neat Rudy (Beau Brinker ’05) does nothing to dispel the unexpected domesticity of Martin Sherman’s Bent. Then Rudy makes a nasty anti-Semitic comment about their landlord, Rosen, and we are painfully reminded that we are in 1934 Nazi Berlin and that nothing is normal. Part of the reason why Risley’s gritty production is so affecting is that the audience is aware of the horrible fate likely to befall the characters long before they themselves are.

Bent is a two act play about the fate of gays under the Nazi r