5 STARS
This play will rip your heart out. Many audible sobs on an opening night is evidence of a brilliant, and fantastically performed, production.
One of the many fantastic elements of this play is the way humour is used to counteract the horrors that it is portraying; that of the treatment of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. This is brought in right at the beginning of the play, when we are introduced to a gay couple living in Berlin, having woken up after a heavy night drinking and dancing at their local club. As an audience you are immediately sucked into this couple’s life and drama, making it even more shocking when a sudden switch acts as a reminder that this is Berlin in 1934.
This tone sets the pace for the rest of the play, as the audience is encouraged to become invested in these characters even more, due to such convincing performances from all members of the cast. Particular praise has to be given to the lead (James Frank) as his character Max is played so believably that the inevitable tragedy is even more heart-wrenching.
The play explores the ways in which relationships formed through speech alone can be a source of hope and a kind of resistance to evil’s attempt to strip them of their humanity. The way words and the imagination can be used to form such a connection is a powerful message of the performance.
As well as the actors, the presence of a live band and singers placed behind the audience helped to create such an atmosphere of total immersion in the lives of these characters. This held particular resonance in the scenes with no dialogue, as the audience was kept focused on the action on the stage by the haunting sounds of female singing voices; songs which were familiar by the end of the play.
Overall, the New Theatre’s production of Martin Sherman’s 1979 play was a convincing portrayal of the all too real ordeal many homosexuals suffered during Hitler’s time in power, and left Her Campus, and we’re sure the rest of the audience, contemplating the horrors and carrying those emotions for hours after the play had ended.
Bent runs until Saturday, and tickets can be purchased here.
Edited by Harriet Dunlea