Last night, I finally had a chance to drop by and see the critically acclaimed production that I worked on with Zeitgeist stage. Bent is a show about what happens to humanity when humanity is killed. On a literal level, it’s about gay men during the holocaust.
It was a tough show to work on. We did one very long fight call to get through the myriad of violence which the actors had to portray onstage (several beatings, several murders of various types, lots of body-dragging, you get the idea). After rehearsal, I came home a bit of a wreck and in need of some emotional after-care. I was pretty sure that I was going to hate the show (in a way that only excellent theatre about provocative issues can make you hate it).
I was mostly correct. While sitting in the audience last night, I got to witness human reactions to the visceral physical and psychological trauma being depicted onstage. Many folks left at intermission because they simply couldn’t bear to see anymore. I felt bad for them, but understood; it’s difficult to get through a show like this. It’s not pleasant to watch, it’s not pleasant to experience, but these are the kinds of atrocities that we, as a society, need to be reminded of in order to grow as human beings. There was, clearly, no end but one for the show’s protagonist and I could understand the need to leave the theatre before that end occurred.
Needless to say, the performances and direction are top-notch. Zeitgeist is a company that’s supremely aware of the old Shakespearean axiom that you need to make an audience love your characters before they die horribly. Moments of levity were interspersed with the horrors we witnessed in order to allow space for air. In terms of dramatic structure, this kind of relief makes the tortures that much more painful (and that much more real). Humor allows us to connect with characters as people and so is an extremely effective device in high tragedy (and I have no other words for what this play is really about).
The actors are all incredibly strong. The couple next to me was pretty seriously pondering the prospect of attacking the Nazi guards as they walked through the aisle on vigilant watch. In a show like this, it can often be more difficult to portray the antagonist than the protagonist. While the audience is already inclined to be sympathetic towards those who are being oppressed, embodying a personification of true evil in this modern world can be extremely taxing to the soul.
You don’t have a lot of time left to catch Bent (they’ll be at the Boston Center for the Arts through October 11th…. That’s next week, folks!). I highly recommend a trip over; and not just because I worked on the show.
