Yes, I like plays that are essentially just vehicles for great acting.

I am also a big fan of Bent, by Martin Sherman.

It is a really, really bleak play. (In the 1930s, an openly gay German man is arrested by Nazis and sent to Dachau. On the train, he is forced to kill his boyfriend, pretends he's Jewish because he's afraid of being labeled as a homosexual, and then has sex with a girl's corpse to prove that he's straight. At Dachau, he falls in love with another gay man, and when that man is shot by Nazi guards the protagonist commits suicide by rushing into an electric fence.)

Really. Really. Bleak.

This is another play that requires very talented, mature, understanding, and emotive actors in order to make it work. There's so much pain in this play (obviously), but there is also joy and love —and all of it has to come across without seeming trite or melodramatic.

Any actor who stars in this play has a lot to live up to, as well.

Recognize that guy?

It's Ian McKellen.

He starred in the original 1979 production in London.

And this guy?

Yup.

It's Richard Gere.

He starred in the 1980 Broadway production before hitting it big with films like American Gigolo (1980) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982).

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Now I am not placing Richard Gere in the same category as Sir Ian McKellen. I'm just sayin' —big names.

Also, I would have LOVED to see the 1979 London production. Can you imagine how powerful that would have been? (Emotionally powerful, not wizard-battling-Balrog powerful. Nerd alert.)