Reference: TEATRO II - BENT by Martin Sherman

Martin Sherman's BENT is a script of aching beauty, as much the history of Nazi persecution of homosexuals during World War II as it is of one man realising the importance of speaking the name of love especially when it has been silenced - and how that finally frees him even as it destroys him. There are moments in the script which literally demand you turn away: Max is forced to torture his lover, Rudy, to escape his own persecution and later, he has to watch as Horst, his only friend in the concentration camp is commanded to walk into an electric fence. These violate every sense of how we love. These violate every sense of what love means to us. And that is why when, at the end of the play, after all that Max has done to deny his love for Rudy and Horst to stay alive, he puts on Horst's uniform with the damning pink triangle and takes his own life, it is so much more than a political statement of truth - it reminds us of why we love. And why we must never stop.