Author: Gere, Richard.
Title: Bent": An Original Window Card Poster for the New Apollo Theatre Production of the Play Starring Richard Gere, with an Original Signed Photograph of the Young Richard Gere Handsomely Mounted at Bottom Left.
Description: [New York]: New Apollo Theatre, [1979]. [1979]. - An original 22 inch high by 14 inch wide Window Card Poster printed on heavy card stock. The poster, for Broadway's New Apollo Theatre production of the play, features the play's title "BENT" boldly printed in red at an angle across the top half of the gray & black speckled background with barbed wire slashing its way across the middle of the word. Printed in red and black in a cream panel filling the lower right quarter of the window card are the credits proclaiming: "Jack Schlissel / Steven Steinlauf present Richard Gere in Bent by Martin Sherman / also starring David Dukes .. Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman .. New Apollo Theatre 234 West 43rd Street". Mounted in the blank space at bottom left of the poster is an original 9-1/8 inch high by 6-3/8 inch wide black & white photograph of the young actor, boldly signed in black ink by Richard Gere. The corners of the poster are very lightly bumped. Near fine.

Richard Gere plays Max Berber, a young promiscuous gay man in 1930's Berlin, who seeks to escape the roundup of gays and Jews following the night of the long knives and the subsequent atrocities. Eventually captured, Max pretends to be a Jew, thinking he might fare better. After suffering through indignities and imprisoned in a concentration camp, Max comes to acknowledge who he is before the guards kill his lover and he commits suicide.

In his review, published in the December 3, 1979 edition of The New York Times, the critic Walter Kerr speaks of Richard Gere's performance in "Bent" thus: "It may sound odd to speak of the actor's work here as subtle; but the state of mind that dictates his increasing ferocity is intricate, intelligible, as inevitable as it is appalling. Mr. Gere is a remarkable performer." "I'm not going to describe an equally disturbing event that follows; the open sound of dismay that washed across the auditorium on the night I saw 'Bent' was one I have never quite heard before - belief, disbelief, shock and half understanding all mixed together. Suffice it to say that by proving his potency Mr. Gere is able to avoid wearing the pink triangle on his clothing that would classify him 'queer'. In an awful irony, he wins a better, safer badge: the yellow star of David." "Strong material; strong performing; dramatic blows do not often strike with this force. Fine .

Keywords: THEATRE; THEATER; BENT; RICHARD GERE; BROADWAY STAR; MOVIE STAR; ORIGINAL WINDOW CARD POSTER; SIGNED; SIGNATURE; AUTOGRAPH; ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH; PLAY; NEW APOLLO THEATRE; JACK SCHLISSEL; STEVEN STEINLAUF; MARTIN SHERMAN; DAVID DUKES; RON RANDELL; GEORGE H

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