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| Bent-Matinee (with Talk Back) |
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Saturday, June 09, 2012; 2:00 PM
Dreamwell Theatre
 Dreamwell presents Bent by Martin Sherman, directed by Angie Toomsen. Bent is the last regular show of the 2011-2012 Dreamwell season. The show will run June 1, 2, 7, 8, 9 at 7:30 p.m., with two shows Saturday, June 9, 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Society, 10 S. Gilbert St. Iowa City.
** Warning: Play contains nudity, violence and adult situations. Not intended for children.**
Talkback Saturday, June 9 Following 2:00 p.m. Matinee
All are invited to stay for a talk-back after the Saturday afternoon show on June 9. Bent director and cast will be joined by special guests: Elizabeth Heineman, UI History professor and Associate Director of the Center for Human Rights, Matthew Conn, Ph.D. candidate in the UI Department of History, and John B. Harper, UI Emeritus Assistant Professor of English who specialized in 20th century America drama, including courses in the history of gay and lesbian theatre. (Read more about the panelists below).
Bent stars K. Michael Moore as Max, Matthew James as Horst, Bryant Duffy as Rudy, Kehry Anson Lane as Greta, Kevin Burford as Uncle Freddie, and Per Wiger as Wolf.
Martin Sherman's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, Bent, is at once is a powerful and provocative look at the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust and a heart-rending account of a love, redemption and self-acceptance.
Set in the wake of Hitler's bloody political purge known as “the Night of the Long Knives,” Bent follows the horrific and transformative experiences of Max Berber, a homosexual man living in 1934 Berlin. As the final vestiges of Weimar decadence are dismantled, Max, with his lover, Rudy, is chased by the Gestapo from a flamboyant and self-destructive pre-war life of excess to the forests of Cologne and, later, to Dachau.
Within the crowded and barbed confines of a concentration camp, Max and fellow prisoner, Horst, construct an inviolate space and a forbidden intimacy that hides in plain sight. It is through Horst's example, and through mortal peril and inhuman terror, that Max begins to learn to love and be loved.
Bent exploded onto the stage at London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979 with Ian McKellen in the role of Max. With blitz-like ferocity, the piece was transferred to Broadway the following year with Richard Gere in the role.
"It educated the world," Sherman explains. "People knew about how the Third Reich treated Jews and, to some extent, gypsies and political prisoners. But very little had come out about their treatment of homosexuals."
Decades later, it continues to challenge and confound audiences.
"Bent is shattering and beautiful because it brings attention to universally relevant themes of the fear of love and intimacy and the struggle to accept who you are," says director, Angie Toomsen. "These giving and skilled actors bring that essential story off the page with courage, care and grace. It's lovely to be a part of."
About Our Featured Panelists at June 9 Talkback
Elisabeth (Lisa) Heineman is a Univerity of Iowa Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Modern Germany & Europe Women, Gender, & Sexuality and Associate Director of the Center for Human Rights. Lisa's past research has examined gender, war, and memory in Germany; welfare states in comparative perspective (Fascist, Communist, and Democratic); and the significance of marital status for women. She is the author of, What Difference Does a Husband Make: Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany and many articles and non-fiction works, including "Sexuality and Nazism: The Doubly Unspeakable?" (Journal of the History of Sexuality) and The History of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights. She is the 2010 recipient of the AICGS/DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies.
Matthew Conn is a Ph.D. candidate in the Univerity of Iowa Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His teaching and research focus is the history of Central Europe since 1700, specifically Forensic Medicine, Gender/Sexuality, as well as Science and Environmental Studies. His research has received funding from the Social Science Research Council and the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies. Matthew recently presented at the UI International Programs lecture series on “Sex before Fascism: Law, Sexology, and Social Belonging in German-speaking Central Europe, 1750-1940,” explaining how our modern understandings of same-sex desires stem from the 18th century German Enlightenment and the debated meanings and origins of the term "homosexual." His article, "Sexual Science and Sexual Forensics in 1920s Germany," argues that, in the early 1920s, German courtrooms witnessed a key shift as presiding judges began to consider a greater number of sexual acts illegal under article 175, which targeted homosexual acts.
John Harper is a retired UI English professor who specialized in 20th century America drama, including courses in the history of gay and lesbian theatre. He has directed over 30 local area theatre productions, including two different productions of Bent in the 1980's. John is also an Episcopal clergyman, and has been on the front lines of marriage equality efforts in Iowa, California, and Washington D.C. He's booked during most of the performances of Bent to officiate at same-sex weddings.
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