When first performed, in 1979, Bent was revelatory as it laid bare the final taboo concerning the horrors of the Holocaust – namely the systematic imprisonment and murder of nearly 250,000 gay men at the hands of the Nazis.

This latest revival, the first major production in London for 16 years, proves that Bent has lost none of its power to shock, move and disturb and is a salutary lesson that, despite the horrors meted out to gays during the Third Reich, gay-hating has lost little of its appeal in certain quarters.

Bent is set in Berlin in the thirties (Cabaret) and revolves around the lives of Max (Alan Cumming) and Rudy (Kevin Trainor). Max is a bon-viveur, totally immersed in the decadence of gay Berlin; confident, out-going and cock-sure. Rudy is the opposite; reticent, shy and insecure yet the two are totally co-dependent on each other.

Their insouciant lives are turned upside down when they have to go on the run from the SS, following the Long Night of the Knives. This dramatic episode, when Hitler ordered the murder of Rohm – his gay right hand man - sounded the death-knoll for Berlin’s gays.

Max and Rudy are duly captured by the SS, and transported to Dachau Concentration Camp, where Max’s desire to survive is tested beyond the limits of what any human being should be able to endure. Yet he manages to, primarily going to inhuman lengths to prove to the guards at Dachau that he’s not gay, but Jewish..

Within the camp, gays are treated as the lowest of the low and for Max that would be too demeaning so he hides his sexuality. It’s only when he is forced to move rocks mindlessly from one end of the prison quad to the other that he’s forced to confront his own dishonesty by his workmate Horst (Chris New). Horst wears his pink triangle hardly with pride – but at least without shame.

The two men defy the brutality of their incarceration by becoming intimate without even touching, in one of the play’s most brilliantly innovative scenes. Max and Horst stand there, facing the audience, motionless and enjoy one of the best fucks of their lives.

The relationship develops but it is only with Horst’s murder that Max can finally hold him. The final scene is almost too painful to watch.

Alan Cumming finds the right balance between making Max’s character dislikeable and endearing in equal measure, and delivers a tour de force performance. In his first major role Chris New is utterly moving in the Dachau scenes – this young actor definitely has a great future ahead of him.

In the cameo role of the drag queen Richard Bremmer is incomparable – indeed there’s no weak link in the cast.

Maybe the stormtroopers invading Max and Rudy’s flat seem to have stepped out of The Producers but there was also a touch of the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange in the way they meted out indiscriminate violence with a smile and a spring in their (goose) step.

Bent should be compulsive viewing for whole swathes of society who still think it’s OK to persecute gays – no surprises that the Pope was a member of the Nazi youth!

A totally absorbing, enthralling and shattering piece of theatre that simply demands to be seen.


BENT
Trafalgar Studios
Whitehall, London
Performances until January 13, 2007