BENT

This review of the play Bent at the Mark Taper Forum is being published a bit later than I had planned, but I needed a few days to digest what I had just seen. As a Jewish person, I try to never watch any shows about the Holocaust; it’s just too painful.

And, as an Empath, it’s even harder for me; this play made me realize that gays had it even worse than my people did in the concentration camps. (And I can only imagine that, if you were a gay Jew, forget about it.) So, seeing Bent was a difficult situation for me, all the way around.

I actually had to force myself to go to the opening because I never want to miss anything at the Music Center, which I feel is the epicenter of theatre in Los Angeles. I had no idea what Bent was about before I RSVPed for opening night. Then someone slipped me the 411 on it, knowing that I’m just too sensitive for subjects such as this. But I decided to tough it out because the topic is something everyone should be aware of.

And I’m glad I did, no matter how depressed I’ve been all week. (I’ve barely slept, and not at all on the night I saw it.) [Note: That night in the theatre, I was about to write this note, “As a Jewess, Holocaust stuff is hard to watch,” but then I realized– it’s hard just as human being!]

All my life, since I was little, I could never understand prejudice of any kind. (Wait—I lied. I actually am prejudiced against two groups—Hare Krishna and child actors!)

So, I have to buck-up and discuss the actual Mark Taper Forum production of this play, which was originally performed in London, (where it was written by Martin Sherman,) in 1978. From what I remember, it was a totally different time then for gays. I grew up in New York, but barely knew any gay people because it was still something to be hidden. Bent makes one realize how far much of the world has come, not just since the unbearable days of Nazis, but even since as recently as the ’70s! That is something to indeed have pride about!

Bent is truly powerful in every area: writing, direction, (by the esteemed Moises Kaufman,) the set, (which I’ll get to in a second,) and, most notably for me, the performances, especially the two leads. I don’t think I’m ruining the plot for anyone to tell you it’s about gays in concentration camps, concentrating on one man’s journey, and the cast brought it to life impeccably.

There was, surprisingly to me, a lot of humor in this play about the Holocaust. But it’s far from being Hogan’s Heroes. (I still don’t understand a sitcom about that topic.) Bent starts out amusing enough. But after the first scene, descends, rightfully, into the darkness that was the Holocaust. (Occasional humor is still mixed-in, though, making it easier to keep watching.)

I was relieved that most of Act I is not set in a concentration camp. Rather, it’s mainly about the two years leading up to Max’s time there. So, not only is the first part of the play very entertaining, but the second scene features the lead singer of rock band Scissor Sister, Jake Shear, as a drag queen singer! It doesn’t get much more interesting than that!

Act II is where the meat is. The entire second act has the two leads, Max and Horst (Patrick Heusinger and Charlie Hofheimer,) constantly moving rocks! Like Sisyphus, (about whom I saw a wordless play two nights later—weird coincidence.) Only these guys are moving them back and forth, for no reason, rather than up a hill. But it’s an equally thankless task. And I’m pretty sure they were real rocks, not fake prop ones. You could see the guys’ abs working when they lifted them, in the part of the scene where they were shirtless. (On a shallow note, because of the sadness of the subject, I was trying not to notice how hunky those two are. But how could I not?!)

Bent is all about love, as it turns out. Again, I don’t want to ruin it, but the scene where the duo just stand there next to each other, and make love without touching (in what I can only imagine was a early form of phone sex,) is something to witness. They’re very quiet about it, as was the audience I was in—you could have heard a pin drop in there. The actors are perfect.

I was especially taken with Hofhaimer’s Horst. Charlie plays the line perfectly of letting us know the character is gay, and proud of it, without making it a caricature.

Equally wonderful is the Beowulf Boritt-designed set. What a masterful job of engineering that is! The same one piece of stage works in every disparate scene; it’s a nice apartment in Berlin, then a cabaret, the park, the woods, the train to Dachau, and the concentration camp guard tower. I was truly in awe of it.

I am a bit disappointed with the end. Spoiler alert: if you don’t want to know about the end, skip ahead to the next, and final, paragraph. During most of the show, I couldn’t figure out how this drama could possibly be resolved. I was really counting on the ever-positive Max to give us hope at the end. But when even he gave up the fight, I just felt despondent. I had been wondering, since the middle of the first act, how anyone ever got out of those evil places, but I figured that Max would show us how. But, alas, he does not. When even a super-strong-minded wheeler-and-dealer, like this character, gives up, I panic and have that horrible feeling that perhaps no one can ever triumph over such supreme evil. Not even the aforementioned comic Colonel Hogan.

On one small non-production note, this is one time that I wish that the Who’s Who in the program had not been in alphabetically order. Clearly Mr. Heusinger and Mr. Hofheimer did most of the heavy lifting (no pun intended,) with an assist by Mr. Mientus. They truly needed to be at the forefront of these credits!

Bent running through August 23, 2015
Mark Taper Forum 135 N. Grand Ave.  213-972-4400 www.centertheatregroup.org