THEATER REVIEW : ‘BENT’ EYES GAYS UNDER NAZI TERROR

SAN DIEGO â€”  “Bent,â€� playing at the tiny Bowery Theatre through Dec. 21, fits a genre of theater offered all too rarely in San Diego.

I don’t mean “Bent’s� plot about homosexual love set amid the repression of pre-World War II Germany. “Bent� is from the dark-night-of-the-soul school of theater, a type of drama that we really haven’t had here--certainly nothing this disturbing--since the Bowery’s “When You Coming Back, Red Rider?� three years ago.

Only a cynic or homophobe might write off “Bent� as a subtle defense of homosexuality. Playwright Martin Sherman has crafted an exquisite drama about love and denial.

At the Bowery, the play has a tension that steadily builds from the first moment until the last beat. The story is about Max and other homosexuals in 1934 Germany, who, with Jews and other enemies of the state, are hauled off to the Dachau concentration camp and extermination center.

The dirt floor and harsh, functional wooden panels by designer Steve Pearson lend the early interior scenes in Berlin the same oppressive, imprisoned quality of the wooden posts and strung barbed wire of the second act.

At the opening, we meet Max (Ray Chambers) and his lover, Rudy (Jeffrey Okey), in their Berlin flat. Despite the serious nature of Rudy’s relationship to Max, Max has a quirky need to hurt his partner, thus proving his independence. So Max picks up men such as Wolf (Bruce Redden), a handsome stranger he has brought home after a wild night on the town.

Suddenly this domestic scene is shattered by a Nazi roundup of homosexuals, who are being shipped off to camps. Max and Rudy flee. But all of Germany amounts to a prison.

Chambers’ Max is a survivor, who hides from his own heart as much as he tries to duck the Nazis.

Okey portrays Rudy as a naive, vulnerable man, given to talking to plants. Though in need of a protector, Rudy understands love, something the tougher, more worldly Max is not ready to deal with.

Through most of the play, Max makes decisions based on survival. When he and Rudy are on the train to Dachau, he beats his lover at the request of a Nazi SS officer. After learning that homosexuals rank lower than Jews in the eyes of Nazis, Max bribes a guard to classify him as a Jew so that his life will be at least a little easier.

Director Ginny-Lynn Safford stages the play with an eye for raw realism. She conveys the boredom of prison life by slowing the pace to a snail’s crawl as Max and a homosexual prisoner, Horst, carry rocks back and forth from pile to pile in the prison yard.

Amazingly, Max and Horst (Robert Nuismer) begin to build a relationship right under the guards’ eyes, mainly during the three-minute periods they must stand at attention. Horst, sweat dripping off his bare chest, and body wracked by a wicked cough, shuffles through the dusty prison yard, all the while relentlessly chipping away at Max’s hard emotional shell.

Safford has cast an excellent group of actors. Kurt Reichert puts in a wonderful cameo as Max’s homosexual Uncle Freddie. “Fluffs,� as he calls homosexuals, must look out for each other, he counsels Max. Though a closet homosexual, Freddie is cut from the same cloth as Max. Neither is willing to risk commitment in a relationship.

Mark Petrich makes a strong impression as Greta, a female impersonator who is a savvy Berlin nightclub owner.

Bruce Redden’s Wolf radiates Germanic good looks and storm trooper toughness. Brian Braaten and Wilson Adam Schooley are convincing as jack-booted Nazi soldiers.

Much of the production’s atmosphere of 1930s Germany and tone of imminent doom comes from the period music and recurring rattle of drums by composer and arranger Lawrence Czoka and the bleak lighting of Sean LaMotte.

“Bent� has something to say about the qualities of humanity that transcend the limitations of sexual preference. It is a taut, demanding drama (which contains nudity), not for the faint-hearted.

“BENT� A drama by Martin Sherman. Directed by Ginny-Lynn Safford. Sets by Steve Pearson. Lighting by Sean LaMotte. Costumes by John-Bryan Davis. Stage manager, Kathy Hansen. With Ray Chambers, Jeffrey Okey, Bruce Redden, Brian Braaten, Wilson Adam Schooley, Mark Petrich, Kurt Reichert and Robert Nuismer. At 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, at 7 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 21. Tickets are $8 and $10; senior-citizen and student discounts. At the Bowery Theatre, 480 Elm St., San Diego.