"Bent" is the name of the two act play written by Martin Sherman dealing with the persecution of homosexuals in Germany in the year 1934.
Max is a thirty-four year old gay man who finds himself running from his home in Berlin with his close friend Rudy. They take refuge in a camp, but are captured and thrown into a train to a concentration camp after they show too much affection for each other in front of their fellow residents. Inside the train, Max is forced to beat Rudy to his death to prove he is not involved with the man. Also inside the train is Horst, another captured queer, who tells him that he has a chance if he can only survive the train.
Once delivered to the concentration camp, Max finds himself assigned to the tediously boring and uselessbut safe job of making piles of rocks and then moving the pile, stone by stone, to the opposite side of the confinement. After some careful manipulating of the guards, Max manages to get Horst transfered to his job.
After finally exchanging a few words, Max and Horst find they long for pleasures of the flesh, but know that they will never be able to feel that once again. During their 5 minute standing break, they have sex with each other, but through words.
Horst develops a threatening cough and Max once again manages to obtain valuable medicine for him. The guards become suspicious when they notice Max has miraculously been completely healed of his (nonexistant) cough but Horst is feeling a little weak still. The captain throws Horst's cap onto the deadly electric fenceand tells him to go fetch it. Caught in a catch 22, Horst walks towards the fence but turns back at the last moment to attack the guards, but is immediately shot down and killed. The captain orders Max to dispose of his body. In a fit a depression and desperation, he retrieves Horst's jacket bearing the homosexual pink triangle symbol and walks into the electric fence.
"A shattering play of intense action written in the language of the holocaust...one of the most important political and cultural events of the last few years."
Charles Ortleb Christopher Street Magazine