[NEohioPAL] Review of "Bent" at the Beck Center for the Arts

[Bob Abelman]

Beck Center’s poignant ‘Bent’ bends but never breaks



Bob Abelman

Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal

Member, American Theatre Critics Association



Few of us can imagine the indignation of being singled out, sequestered and assigned a yellow Star of David to wear.  Fewer still can envision someone’s desperate desire to wear one.



But this aspiration is at the very heart of Martin Sherman's Holocaust drama “Bent,” which calls attention to the lowest class status of homosexuals in the Nazi concentration camps – designated by a pink triangle – and the heightened severity of persecution, if such a thing is possible, that goes along with it. 



The horrifying acts of denial, deception and betrayal that the flamboyantly gay and gentile Max performs to obtain a Jewish star is the focus of this immensely powerful play. 



In its staging at the Beck Center for the Arts, “Bent” proves to be a still-relevant story about the oppression of queer individuals that needs to be told, though it does so with some glitches in the storytelling. 



For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/
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