The
closet in hell looks like the holocaust
By
Lorien Nettleton
William
Hahn finds something worth dying
for in Hunger Artistīs Bent
Media Credit: Photo courtesy of
Hunger Artists Ensemble Theatre
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When
I was fifteen I had a Black Flag T-shirt in which
a police officer was depicted with a German-made
pistol in his mouth. The Lueger was screaming
in bold, "make me come, faggot."
Interestingly enough, my parents were completely
against me wearing this shirt. While Ma tried
simply hiding it from me, Pa appealed to my sense
of reason with a story about Nazi Germany and
one of many groups of people persecuted there.
When the Germans had rounded up as many homosexuals
as they could find, he said, they proceeded to
burn them. Onlookers joked that the homosexuals
burnt just like little sticks, or "faggots" in
French. This is also the reason why especially
queeny fellows will sometimes be called "flamers."
Had they lived in central Europe under the Third
Reich, they certainly would have been fuel to
the flames of Deutschland with their skinny, pale,
effeminate bodies.
While this footnote does not make appearance in
Bent, the larger, more empowering origins of Gay
Pride's most important emblem is featured as the
core symbol. In Germany the pink triangle was
a badge of identification worn by homosexuals,
creating a separate class of person, hated by
all, even other captives in the concentration
camps. Since then it has come to be a sign of
empowerment.
As a reminder of the origins of the pink triangle,
Bent explores loyalty, pride, love, and closeted
human nature through the experiences of a man
in Dachau.
Max (William Hahn) is a Berlin butterfly whose
unrelenting partying borders on nihilism. He is
so wrapped up in the nightlife of Gay Berlin that
he doesn't notice the soldiers in brown shirts
goose-stepping around, nor does he hear about
the new laws marking him as a target for hate.
Instead, he frequently suffers mind-bending hangovers
and sexual amnesia, relying on a hilarious dancer,
Rudy (Dennis Crowder), his live-in lover to remind
him who he brought home the night before.
A charismatic deal-maker with self preservation
as a high priority, Max is good at talking people
into helping him in some way or another, blurring
the line between scruples and selfish need, survival
is his top priority. While the others picked up
with him such as Horst (xxxNorton) get a pink
triangle, Max is able -- by flinging humanity
to the dogs along with his lover, his compassion,
and personal dignity -- to scam a yellow star
instead of a pink triangle.
Despite the overwhelming calculated slaughter
of the Nazi's final solution, Max and his new
friend, Horst are amazingly able to bring out
a tremendous lightness of living amid the doom
and decay.
Max and Horst find ways of becoming intimate,
utilizing the senses that transcends the physical.
While heaving rocks in the hot sun, the two -
forbidden to touch or look at each other - contrive
a way to express their longing. Under the watchful
but sill unknowing eye of the guards, Max and
Horst engage in one spicy hot act of lovemaking,
while standing on opposite ends of the stage.
The electric performances of Hahn and Norton redefine
the understanding of "mind-blowing," raising the
temperature of the theater by several degrees
and proving the power of visualization can do
a world of good.
Bent can be taken either as an allegory for the
psychology of closeted homosexuality, and simultaneously
as the closeted dissident, the person who negotiates
through unjust settings out of fear of personal
safety, and seeking greatest degree of personal
safety. Instructive for everyone, It reminds that
no matter what, if open to the sensations around
us, we are capable of retaining human dignity
even in the most adverse of situations.
Hunger Artists' production takes an outstanding
script and pushes it to the fullest height. Bent
is an outstanding production with a raw energy
and passion that carries its message of self-honesty
with surprising lightness when so much seems to
indicate oncoming darkness.
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