STAGE REVIEW : Powerful ‘Bent’ Stands on Its Own Despite Tricks, Technical Shortcomings

The power of Martin Sherman’s 1979 tragedy, “Bent,” wasn’t so much that it revealed to many for the first time that gays were tortured and gassed alongside Jews in Hitler’s death camps, but that it challenged the trendy notion that a gay playwright’s job is to portray “positive” images of gays.

This activist-generated scourge of good writing, of course, is now sweeping over movies, which remain terrified of any gay characters. Theater is way ahead in this department, and “Bent” helped break some barricades.

It remains a very fine play, full of small and large surprises--beginning with what a jerk Sherman’s seemingly nice central character is when confronted with moral choices. Actually, in a strong production of “Bent,” Sherman’s Max is an amoral beast, but in Juan A Mas’ tame staging at the Studio Theatre in Long Beach, Max is just a jerk.

So at the end--when he can no longer bear how his survival instinct in the camps has caused the death of his lover, Rudy (Laurence Joseph Ruffo), and his new friend, Horst (Eric B. Gerleman)--Max’s heroic-tragic transformation is several miles short of the Saul-to-Paul change it should be.

When everything that Sherman has been building up to for more than two hours is continually blunted, climax is virtually anti-climax (symptomatically, Sherman’s searing closing image is technically botched here).

Even more seriously, because Mas’ production and Michael Warga’s performance as Max lack an inner fire, this “Bent” feels empty of the play’s metaphorical intent: that Max himself is 20th-Century man, moving from effete, tranquil domesticity to confronting the epoch’s moral monsters.

Sherman’s precise dialogue ensures that the flabbiest of readings won’t indulge in melodrama, but it can’t prevent an uninspired reading from being nothing more than what’s in front of us. Mas pulls off the dubious trick of turning “Bent” into a period piece, thus making it a very safe evening in the theater.

Part of this trick stems from bits of added business, such as actors as Nazis training flashlights on us and demanding identity papers during a blackout. An elaborate Nazi “street scene” is played out in the theater’s plaza-like lobby during intermission, supposedly to add color. Perhaps Mas believed that his show needed something more, but “Bent” has more than enough to stand on its own.

‘Bent’

A Long Beach Studio Theatre production of Martin Sherman’s drama. Directed by Juan A Mas. With Michael Warga, Laurence Joseph Ruffo and Eric B. Gerleman. Sets by Aaron Osborn. Through May 30 at the Studio Theatre, 5021 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach. Performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Matinees at 2 p.m. on Sunday and May 24. $9 to $10. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.