Center Stage with Pat Launer on KSDS JAZZ88

THEATRE REVIEW

“Bent” – ion and Diversionary Theatres

AIRDATE: NOVEMBER 6, 2009

A pink triangle. The badge of a homosexual in the Nazi concentration camps. Pinned to the striped pajamas. A proclamation of perversion. Ranked even lower than the yellow star of the Jews.

More than a half-million gays were slaughtered during the Holocaust, but their story was rarely, if ever, told. It was Martin Sherman’s 1979 drama, “Bent,” that exposed the fictionalized truth, in all its horrific detail. The riveting piece of theater, nominated for a Best Play Tony Award, woke the world up to this hideous chapter of history. And in 1985, when it premiered in San Diego, in a small production at the Bowery Theatre, it woke me up to an alternate narrative. It was this intense drama that inspired me to become a theater critic.

So now, nearly a quarter-century later, the play is back. And it’s no less powerful, searing or unforgettable.

Despite its dark theme, the piece starts out on a light, sometimes comical note. Max is a Berliner, a narcissistic hedonist in the Weimar era, frequenting transvestite clubs, overdoing the alcohol and cocaine. One night, after he brings home a boytoy, to the dismay of his partner, Rudy, all hell breaks loose and life starts to spiral out of control.

Pretty soon, Max and Rudy find themselves on a transport train, and they wind up in Dachau. Max is a self-serving survivor; he’ll do or say anything, moral or not, wrangle any deal, manipulate any situation, to save his own skin. He snags himself a yellow star instead of a pink triangle, and he’s arranged an assignment to what he says is the best work in the camp: a task designed to drive a person mad: he has to haul large stones, one at a time, across a field. And then, lug them back. Pointless, senseless, mind-numbing and meaningless work. For twelve hours a day. With a 3-minute standing-at-attention break every two hours. He shares the drudgery with Horst, a gay man who’s honest about who he is. Their evolving personal/sexual relationship, conducted completely in the imagination, is a wonder of dramatic sleight-of-hand. In the worst of all places, the most horrifying of times, we see that it’s possible to regain your humanity.

The ion and Diversionary Theatre co-production, tautly directed by Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza, is a deep and piercing experience. It gets off to a sluggish start, with some protracted scene changes. But once the action moves to the camp, we’re mesmerized. The ensemble is exquisite and Michael Zlotnik is a marvel, a stunning portrait of mixed and complex emotions as the twisted Max, a man who needed the abomination of a concentration camp to teach him about honesty, compassion and love. It’s a remarkable performance.

If you can handle the thematic barbarity, you’re in for a haunting, virulent, extraordinary evening of theater.

The ion theater/Diversionary Theatre co-production of “Bent” runs through November 22 at Diversionary Theatre on the edge of Hillcrest.

©2009 PAT LAUNER