Newspapers / Lambda (Carolina Gay and … / April 1, 1980, edition 1 / Page 11
Part of Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Directed “by Robert Allan Ackerman, at the New Apollo Theatre, in New York City. Theatrically Bent is a superbly crafted piece of work, powerfully directed by Robert Allan Ackerman at the New Apollo Theatre in New York City and exquisitely acted by a cast that includes Richard Gere, David Dukes, and David Marshall Grant. On a personal level it is the story of one gay nan’s acceptance of loving and being loved and of his own gayness. On a historical level, it tells us of the oppression and extermination of gay people in Nazi Germany, a historical chapter largely ignored by most history books. On a political level it addresses the po tential for fascism in any society and how gay people fit into that picture. Bent is the story of Max and Rudy, politically naive lovers caught in the web of Nazi persecution of gays. Rudy, a gentle child-man, is battered on the way to Dachau. But Max, the picaresque survivor, manages not only to arrive alive at the death-camp but to get the yellow star that identifies prisoners as Jews, rather than the pink triangle reserved for homosexuals. This way, he believes, he will su3r/-ive by es caping the special hatred of the Nazis for the ’’bent. ” At Dachau, Max is befriended by Horst, a thin, ghostly prisoner who first came to the camps as a result of his involvement in the early ^y rights movement. Together they haul rocks from one pile to another and back again, a meaningless and ex haustive labor designed to destroy the minds of the prisoners. In the play's most extraordi nary scene. Max and Horst contrive to make love without touching, while standing at attention under the eyes of the guards. This victory gives them strength, but even that is not enough to overcome- the effects of the grueling physical abuse of Dachau. Horst falls victim to pnemonia, and, for once. Max the wheeler- dealer cannot help. Max believes that he has "tricked" a guard into getting him medicine. But the guards know as they always do. Horst is faced with the deadly hat-throwing game, in which the prisoner is ordered to throw his cap onto the electrified fence and then -bo retrieve it. Obedience means electrocution? refusal means being shot. Max must fling Horst’s body into a pit. He removes his yellow star, re places it with Horst’s bloods-bained pink triangle, and hurls himself onto the fence. One of the main themes throughout . the play is that Max has trouble with freely being able to love and accept ing the idea of loving. For ins-tance, while begging his uncle to acquire two tickets out of Germany, one for Max and one for Rudy, .the uncle asks Max if he is in love with R'ody. Max replies, "Don’t be stupid. What’s love? . . . I’m a grown-up now." Through his relationship with Horst in the prison camp. Max even tually comes to realize he can love, and does love Horst, but only after much struggle with himself. Horst is a man who is able to ' love, who gives his love freely to• Max. They verbally iriake love to gether, d-uring a standing-at- attention rest period, unable to touch or look at one another, Vhx nonetheless continues to deny he loves Horst; he tells him, "Queers aren't meant to love. . . they (society) don’t want us to . . . I know. Don’t love me." In a second, verbal love-making scene, Horst "pulls back" when Max begins to get rough. Horst replies, "You try to hurt me . . . why can't you be gentle? ... on the outside (before con centration camp days) people made pain and called it love. And it was exciting, but it wasn’t love," Max begins to remember that Rudy didn’t like the pain either, and he isn’t sure anymore that even he did. Then Max begins—unsurely at first—to make love -to Horst, again verbally, but this time "gently, softly." It is then that Max begins to understand he is able -bo love. (Bent, cont, p. 12) 14 f
Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 1, 1980, edition 1
11
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75