#4 in the National Theatre’s Queer Theatre season of rehearsed readings
“I love you… What’s wrong with that?”… Perhaps one of the better known of these plays but still a new one to me, I really wasn’t prepared for the emotional trauma of Martin Sherman‘s Bent whether I was hungover to fuck or not. Harrowing is barely the word to describe this dramatisation of the way in which the Nazis persecuted gay men in Germany before and during World War II and with this reading, directed by Stephen Daldry, taking place on Pride weekend, its impact was all the more emotional.
Russell Tovey (continuing his graduation into a properly fine actor) and George Mackay took on the lovers Max and Rudy, their coming together in the hedonism of Weimar Berlin shattered by the dawning of the Night of the Long Knives, the realisation of just how insidious the Third Reich is, and the astonishing lengths that people will go to in order to protect themselves at the expense of all they hold dear.
The second act shift to the concentration camp at Dachau provides an unexpected ray of something that could be called sunshine in the face of such adversity but obviously that turns traumatic too, especially in the hands of Paapa Essiedu here. Sterling support came from Simon Russell Beale, Giles Terera, a rare stage appearance for Pip Torrens…and the brilliance of Sherman’s writing sang through as clearly as it would have done in a full fledged production, the visuals more than made up for by the commitment of a director and cast determined to ensure that the play’s message of the endurance of the human spirit is as true today as it ever was, more so even.
Cast for the 1979 Royal Court production directed by Robert Chetwyn
Jeremy Arnold
Peter Cellier
John Francis
Richard Gale
Ken Shorter
Haydn Wood
Tom Bell
Ian McKellen
Andy Roberts
Gregory Martyn
Jeff Rawle
Roger Dean
Simon Shepherd
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