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)