This article has been corrected since its original publication.
Even 30 years after Martin Sherman's harrowing drama "Bent" first stunned audiences with its raw honesty, it still has the power to shock ---- not so much for its content (a gay love story set in a Nazi concentration camp), but for the fact that homosexuals are still fighting for the simple right to live and love in peace.
San Diego's Diversionary and ion theaters have teamed up this month for a co-production of "Bent" at Diversionary. Although the play is celebrating its third decade this year, Diversionary is the only professional theater in the country that has produced it in 2009, according to Diversionary artistic director Dan Kirsch. Perhaps it's not surprising. "Bent" is tough stuff ---- an unflinching, often disturbing examination of cowardice and courage in the face of withering human cruelty.
And this production, co-directed by ion co-founders Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza, pulls no punches. The brutality piled upon the innocent characters in this play is so noisy and extreme, it sometimes feels like more of an endurance challenge than a night of theater for the audience. But the script is excellent, its message is important and many of the performances in the production are very good.
The play's first act takes place in 1934 Berlin, where 20something roommates and lovers Max (a drug dealer and opportunist) and Rudy (a gentle-hearted nightclub dancer) enjoy a decadent lifestyle that often involves threesomes with anonymous men Max meets while out clubbing. On this morning, the hung-over Max discovers he has brought home a Nazi soldier, and a subsequent raid by the Gestapo sends them fleeing. Betrayed by a friend, they end up on a train to the Dachau concentration camp and Rudy is beaten to death (both by Nazi guards and by the cowardly Max, who is goaded into hitting Rudy to protect himself).
Max discovers that there's a pecking order for prisoners at Dachau. The Jews are one rung above the gay prisoners (whose striped prison uniforms are marked not with a yellow star but with a pink triangle), so Max further abases himself to the guards to get himself reclassified as a Jew. Max's bargain with the devil offends Horst, a gay prisoner who ended up at Dachau for signing a gay-rights petition, and Horst resists Max's initial efforts to forge a friendship.
In the play's second act, Max and Horst are engaged in a Sisyphean labor, forced by the camp guards to endlessly move a pile of rocks from one end of the yard to the other, one rock at a time. As they struggle through the mind-numbing task over several months, they slowly forge a protective bond. And though they're barred from touching one another, they use words and their imagination to create sexual intimacy. Neither man expects to survive the camp, but in his final act, Horst teaches Max to live in the moment with self-respect, dignity and courage.
Starring in the production as the antihero Max is Michael Zlotnik. Zlotnik's performance on opening weekend was hit and miss. He did a fair job portraying his character's selfish disconnect from other's needs and feelings (literally closing his eyes to all that occurred around him), but he could do much more to plumb Max's emotional depths. Much stronger are Chris Buess as the endearing and doomed Rudy, and the understated Charlie Reuter as the quietly dignified Horst.
Walter Ritter steals his one fine scene as Max's kindly gay Uncle Freddie (who can't understand what harm a "fluff" like himself can do, simply by making eyes at other men in the park). As the transvestite club performer Greta, Stephen Lone is unapologetic in his callous selfishness (he turns in Max and Rudy for a cash reward). Bobby Schiefer is youthful and brash as Max's doomed Nazi lover, Wolf. And Philip John and Eric Dowdy are chilling in their multiple roles as cruel Nazi guards and captains.
On Sunday, the play felt poky, especially in the second act. The prisoners' task is tedious, but the long gaps in the dialogue and Zlotnik's tendency to stretch out his lines spoiled some of the tension built up in the first act. Also, the play's power is in the unspoken horror these men were forced to endure because of their sexuality. That needs little amplification to have an impact on the audience, but this production loses all subtlety in some scenes, and it's excruciating to endure the repeated, blood-curdling screams from the abused prisoners on the train.
The play's physical production is impressive. Raygoza and assistant director Bret Young did a fine job creating a versatile, multi-locale set in a small space with a drawbridge, swing, curtains, fencing and other set pieces. Omar Ramos' sound design is foreboding (listen for the quirky historical recordings of German and Austrian cabaret singers from the '20s and '30s before the show). and Jeannie Galioto's costumes are historically accurate. Beth Gallagher designed props, and Courtney Fox Smith did wigs and makeup.
"Bent" was the first play that portrayed the suffering of gay prisoners in Nazi camps. Audience members who'd like to learn more about this dark chapter of history may appreciate an exhibit of archival photographs in Diversionary's lobby, curated by Lambda Archives of San Diego. There are pictures from some of Germany's gay clubs during the Weimar Republic years, the openly gay Nazi leader Ernst Rohm (killed by Hitler in 1934 at the beginning of his gay purge) and gruesome photos of gay prisoners' bodies piled high in the concentration camps.
"Bent"
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays; through Nov. 22
Where: Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Blvd., San Diego
Tickets: $33, general; $29, military, seniors and students (for mature audiences)
Info: 619-220-0097
Web: diversionary.org
