Bent

Yesterday evening I went to see Bent, a Theatre at First production featuring John as Greta (a singer and nightclub owner).

I happened to bump into Davie and Kristen, two good friends from the Gilbert and Sullivan Players, so we found seats together in the front row.

The show is about the persecution of gay men in Nazi Germany, and I think everyone in the theatre knew that (though Kristen mentioned that only just before she came did she look up what the show was about and realise what she was getting herself into).  Therefore I felt that the first scene suffered from a feeling of "when are the Nazis going to burst into the house".  It's possibly unavoidable in such a show, but I did feel that it detracted from the Max (main character) - Rudy (his boyfriend) banter.  A little later in the show their arguing (forest/jungle) was much more effective.

John wasn't featured as heavily as we fans would have liked.  The first act gave the briefest glimpses of several different stories while following Max's, and it would have been nice to have seen more about the other characters and their motivations.  It did feel like act I was there for the purpose of setting up act II.

Act II focused on the growing friendship between Max and Horst, a fellow prisoner he met on the train to Dachau, and (apart from the intrusion of prison guards - and, since I'm so pedantic, another prisoner serving food at the beginning of the act) they were the only characters to appear in the second act.  Their job was to carry rocks back and forth: they were forced to do this for no reason, simply to drive them crazy.  The actors portrayed this well: it seemed like the actors had fallen into a zone as their characters, just as the characters had fallen into a zone of just doing what they were told in order to survive.

There was some message that companionship and love can make bad times good and horrible times a little less horrible, even when one cannot touch or even look at one's lover.  Overall, the strongest feeling I got from the show was "don't be a Nazi".  The characters were in difficult situations and no way of dealing with them worked all that well, but clearly we must observe ourselves to make sure that we never become the oppressors.

I know that others see different themes as the main message of the play.  John suggested 'one must be true to who one really is, or terrible things will happen', and though I believe his interpretation this really didn't strike me.  Maybe it's because I've never really been persecuted, so I don't identify myself with the victim in dramatic productions that emphasise awful situations like this one.  Instead I see 'this is what people in privileged positions can become like, so make sure [I] don't!'