Cast is announced for Bent revival onstage in London

Playbill.com has announced that the full cast for the forthcoming London revival of Martin Sherman’s Bent has been set. The play will star Alan Cumming as Max, and, in his professional stage debut, Chris New will take on the role of Max’s gay lover, Horst.

Daniel Kramer (Hair) will lead the production, which will feature an original song by Pet Shop Boys star Chris Lowe with lyrics by Martin Sherman. Previews begin at the Trafalgar Studios September 22 with an official opening night on October 5.

The original production was first seen in 1979 at London’s Royal Court with Sir Ian McKellen as Max, a role to which he returned with the 1990 National Theatre revival. Richard Gere played the role in the 1980 Broadway version.

The play follows the hounding and imprisonment in a Dachau concentration camp of Max, who bribes his way to winning a Jewish star on his striped camp clothing because it is a surer way to survive than the pink triangle, which denotes that he is gay.

Cumming won a Tony in 1998 for his portrayal of the emcee in Sam Mendes’s Donmar revival of Cabaret , and he was recently seen on Broadway as Macheath in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of The Threepenny Opera.

Also cast are Richard Bremmer (Greta), Hugh Ross (Freddie), Kevin Trainor (Rudy), and Benjamin Wilkin (Wolf).

Martin Sherman is the award-winning author of many plays, screenplays, and adaptations, including Ros e, which premiered at the National Theatre in 1999 starring Olympia Dukakis and moved to Broadway the following year. Recently Sherman wrote the book for the Broadway musical The Boy From Oz. (The Advocate)

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