Productions 2008-2009

Bent
By Martin Sherman
Directed by Richard Nimke

Kjer Theatre
October 9-11 & 15-18
at 7:30 p.m.
October 12 at 1:30 p.m.

(Note: This play is for mature audiences only
and contains nudity, violence, and adult situations.)

Ticket Information

In 1934 Berlin Max and his lover Rudy are recovering from a drinking and sexual encounter with a homosexual Sa Trooper.  Two Nazi officers burst into the apartment and slit their guest’s throat, beginning a nightmare odyssey through Nazi Germany which ranked homosexuals on a lower human scale than Jews.  They flee to a straight cabaret singer who performs in drag.  He scornfully gives them the money he got from the Nazis for revealing their address.  On the run, Max meets his discreetly homosexual Uncle Freddie who suggests that Max get married and practice, as he does, homosexuality on the side.  Max refuses to abandon Rudy.  They’re caught and enrooted in a boxcar to Dachau.  When Rudy is beaten to death, Horst, another homosexual prisoner, warns Max to deny knowing him.  At Dachau, he and Horst plan to survive but it is not to be.

“Martin Sherman’s Bent educated the world about the pink triangles…the story is still relevant not just as a bit or our history-I speak as a gay man-but it’s relevant to events and facts today of life throughout the world where gay people are often put to a disadvantage by the laws of whatever country they happen to live in.  Although things are improving, I think it’s because of this story that Martin Sherman has told so strongly presenting the case for human understanding and what it is to be gay.” Sir Ian McKellen

“The open sound of dismay that washed across the auditorium on the night I saw Bent was one I have never quite heard before-belief, disbelief, shock, and half-understanding all mixed together.” Walter Kerr, The New York Times