A Study Guide for Martin Sherman's "Bent"
()
About this ebook
Read more from Gale
A study guide for Frank Herbert's "Dune" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide for Louis Sachar's "Holes" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for James Clavell's "Shogun" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for George Orwell's Animal Farm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for William Shakespeare's Macbeth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Marjane Satrapi's "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Lois Lowry's The Giver Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: ALBERT BANDURA Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Psychologists and Their Theories for Students: JEAN PIAGET Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for James Joyce's "James Joyce's Ulysses" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Business Plans Handbook: Bakery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Furniture Businesses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Study Guide for T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Wole Soyinka's "Death and the King's Horsemen" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for George Orwell's 1984 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Study Guide (New Edition) for F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide (New Edition) for William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBusiness Plans Handbook: Auto Detailing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to A Study Guide for Martin Sherman's "Bent"
Related ebooks
A Study Guide for Clifford Odets's "Rocket to the Moon" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Terrence McNally's "Love! Valour! Compassion!" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for David Hare's "Plenty" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for D. L. Coburn's "The Gin Game" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Sophie Treadwell's "Machinal" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Alice Childress's "The Wedding Band" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Neil Simon's "Odd Couple" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Megan Terry's "Calm Down Mother" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Marita Bonner's "The Purple Flower" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow the Vote Was Won: A Play in One Act Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChicken Burger N Chips Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJeremy Johnson: the Collected Plays Vol 2: Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContemporary Duologues Collection: Two Men | Two Women | One Man & One Woman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOverruled Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLineStorm Playwrights Present Go Play Outside: Twenty-Five Short Plays Written for the Great Outdoors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Lee Blessing's "Eleemosynary" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrecious Little Talent & Hot Mess (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Howard Sackler's "The Great White Hope" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Herb Gardner's "I'm Not Rappaport" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Tina Howe's "Coastal Disturbances" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Michael Cristofer's "The Shadow Box" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Rebecca Gilman's "Blue Surge" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Beaux-Stratagem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Political Plays: 1997 / Cheap Thrill / Zero Hour / Learning to Live with Personal Growth / Sisters in the Great Day Care War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Robert Schenkkan's "The Kentucky Cycle" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTragedy in the Contemporary American Theatre Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWomen Centre Stage: Eight Short Plays By and About Women (NHB Modern Plays) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBetween Breaths Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Secret History: by Donna Tartt | Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKillers of the Flower Moon: by David Grann | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for A Study Guide for Martin Sherman's "Bent"
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Study Guide for Martin Sherman's "Bent" - Gale
1
Bent
Martin Sherman
1978
Introduction
Martin Sherman's best-known work, Bent, fits in both the categories of gay literature and Holocaust literature. Prior to Bent, there had been virtually no inclusion of gays in discussions about the Holocaust. Therefore, it had a groundbreaking impact when it was first staged off-Broadway in 1978; an impact that continued when the play was performed in London the next year and then finally brought to Broadway. Although the play has flaws, the uniqueness of the story line and the strength of its message about tolerance, love, and human dignity made the play successful. In fact, it was nominated for both a Pulitzer and a Tony in 1980.
The time period of the play is also different from most other Holocaust literature. Rather than being set during World War II, the story begins in 1934 when Hitler's purge of his Storm Troopers (SA) coincidentally led to the persecution of gays since the head of the SA was gay and his fall provided an excuse for going after other homosexuals. The play continues into 1936, when most of the world still had no idea that any concentration camps existed.
The subject matter, nudity, and verbal sex in the play were controversial enough, but Bent ignited further controversy with its suggestion that the gays suffered more than the Jews during the Holocaust. Debate continues among historians about the situation of each group under the Nazis. In the meantime, the play was staged in more than thirty countries during the 1980s and continues to be produced by community theaters across the United States. As a book, the play is available as a 1979 publication of Samuel French, Inc.
Author Biography
Martin Sherman's parents, Joseph T., an attorney, and Julia Shapiro Sherman, were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Sherman, their only child, was born on December 22, 1938, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but raised in Camden, New Jersey. His upbringing was such that he saw his first theater production at age six. When he was twelve, he was privileged to see the great Alfred Lunt and Lynn