Denver Post
Hunger's 'Bent' best of the year
Tuesday,
April 22, 2003 Twenty-four years
after Richard Gere brought Martin Sherman's revolutionary piece of playwriting
to Broadway, the devastating story of how Nazis killed both time and gays
in the Dachau camp retains a timeless ability to deliver a jolt as lethal
as one from an electric fence. Perhaps that's because
in America, of all the groups singled out for extinction by the Nazis
60 years ago, only homosexuals remain subjected to the societal ambivalence
that still allows for condoned acts of violence and discrimination against
them.
*** 1/2 (out of 4 stars) Written by:Martin Sherman Directed by:Jeremy Cole Starring: William Hahn, Joseph Norton and Dennis Crowder Presented by: Hunger Artists Ensemble Theatre Where: LIDA Project Experimental Theatre, 2180 Stout St. When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, through May 10 Running time:2 hours, 25 minutes Tickets:$16-$18 (303-893-5438) Evidence of the modern-day
persecution of gays is only as hard to find as a newspaper. There was
Matthew Shepard in Laramie, as well as Kyle Skyock, the Rifle teen brutally
beaten for being gay. And there are an estimated 1,500 new hate-crimes
victims every year, according to the FBI. Sherman estimated
that up to a half million gays were killed by the Nazis in World War II,
most by methods that raised the bar for cruelty and degradation. But just last month,
a Minnesota House representative looked a Holocaust survivor in the eye
and questioned her eyewitness account of the slaughter of gays. Apparently
some stories need to be told until they are heard. Ironically, at the
end of the Hunger Artists' gut-eviscerating new production of "Bent,"
all that can be heard is silence, followed by a groundswell of weeping,
from the right and left. The production has
its minor flaws. The secondary actors playing Nazis are about as menacing
as Dennis; perhaps one of the condemned prisoners is played with too sunny
of a disposition; and not all of the script's verbal hammers hit their
nails on the head. But when a play ends with weeping in stereo, you have
to give it up to those involved and say, "Bravo." Nothing I've seen of
late has so affected its audience, and for my money, that makes "Bent"
the best play of the year. That this blindside
comes from the Hunger Artists, who have been largely dormant the past
year, only magnifies the feat. And that blindside is delivered courtesy
of an impeccable actor named William Hahn. "Bent" opens in the
living room of an ordinary gay couple in 1934 Berlin. "In the Mood" is
playing, but how could anyone be in a fine mood with the foreboding visual
of an already omnipresent barbed-wire fence draping the back wall, a Nazi
soldier pacing back and forth? Homosexuality was illegal but tolerated
in Germany until Hitler executed Karl Ernst, the openly gay and tolerant
director of his storm troopers forces. Hahn plays Max, a
drunken, directionless trust-fund playboy cared for by devoted dancer
Rudy (the terrifically natural newcomer Dennis Crowder). But the playwright
takes a devastating and daring right turn that leaves its unprepared audience
wrecked even before intermission. Suffice it to say, Crowder makes an
unforgettable entry to - and exit from - the Denver stage. Among Sherman's many
potentially lethal risks is the introduction of a second protagonist in
the second act. But the result is simple, existential genius. The remaining
action consists only of Max and Horst (the winning Joseph Norton) pacing
the yard, moving a pile of rocks from one end to the other. It is a cruel
Nazi mind game intended to drive the men insane. If they are ever caught
talking to one another, or touching one another, they will be shot. This confined new
premise simply should not work, dramatically. But it does, emphatically.
Over months, these two men learn ways of communicating, of falling in
love and of even making love to one another - without laying a finger
on one another. Max and Horst move only 20 feet back and forth in a straight
line, yet they embark on epic character arcs. How they come to grips with
their humanity, their identities and their destinies is heartbreaking
enough, but even as a simple piece of theater business, it is a thrill
to watch. Whether Norton should
open with such a glib demeanor is debatable. His Horst seems oblivious
to the fact he is trapped in an inescapable courtyard of death. But it's
not so much where you begin as where you end, and Norton brings Horst
home with a demise that is agonizing and raw. There is less room
for debate about a performance from Hahn that is so razor-sharp, it could
easily be remembered one day as legendary. Max is a man incapable of love
who is brought to a place where his survival depends on denial and deals,
where even the slightest act of love can get him killed. Survival is possible
here, but all it will cost you is your soul. And Hahn seems to have actually
changed bodies at intermission. His vapid player with the sculpted physique
is replaced in totality with a mature, realized hero who springs to life
from within the decayed shell of a gaunt sack of bones. "Bent" director Jeremy
Cole has remarkable control over the tone of his piece (and ditching the
accents was brilliant). Lighting designer Anna R. Kaltenbach accentuates
every poignant moment with harrowing profundity, and Mike Herron's simple
but telling set design will make him a wanted man. But this "Bent" will
be remembered most not for its hero's ultimate act of courage, but for
the courage summoned by the actor inhabiting him.
"Bent" is a play about a pile of rocks, and it will hit you like a ton of
bricks.
DETAILS
Bent