The first thing we see is a fully naked man standing frozen, while all around him figures in the dark shout at him, as if devils from inside his own mind.

Next we see the man, clothed now in pajama bottoms and a robe, head down and suffering from a horrible, memory erasing hangover. Then we see him rush off stage and vomit louder than you’ve ever heard before.

He comes back, wiping his mouth, flops on the floor and we are then greeted with another fully naked young man, striding seductively out of the bedroom, past our hungover hero.

This is just the first five minutes of the brave and terrifying production of "Bent" from The World’s Stage Theatre Company which opened Friday night at the 10th Street Theatre.

"Bent" is a 1979 play written by Martin Sherman about the Nazi persecution of gays. It is a brutal story, and the play is just as brutal.

TWC has a history of pushing the edges of the envelope to create theater that shocks and means something. They have both succeeded and failed in the past. This one is a clear success, even if there are minor quibbles.

The first half of the story is about Max and Rudy, German gay lovers. They are arrested by the Nazis, and on the train to Dachau, Max is forced to kill his lover to prove he is not gay.

To Max, it is better to be a Jew than a "fluff" forced to wear the pink triangle. On the train, Max meets Horst, who wears his pink triangle proudly. Max, with his falsehood a secret, wears the yellow triangle of the Jew. It is Horst who explains that the pink puts him, and others, at the bottom of the prisoner totem pole.

The shocking beginning of this play seems to suggest that there is nowhere else to go. If your most dramatic moments come in the early moments, is it all downhill from there?

The answer is, kind of.

I’ve always thought this play would be better and more powerful if it were a 75-minute one act rather than a two-hour two-act production. But there is an amazing climb back up the mountain top of drama as the play drags you toward its end.

I don’t want to give too much away of the absolutely shocking final half hour of this play, but it is explicit and grimy, while maintaining a dignity and passion that you may never see on stage.

And this cast, specifically two actors, give it all they have, and it’s plenty much enough to carry this thing to expected heights.

Kirk Thomsen is the beleaguered hero Max. He is gaunt, ripped and has the kind of powerfully uncertain air you’d associate with someone who dances with the devil. He is both perplexed and certain of his strengths and his failings and is a sly master of the "deal," a series of compromises that see him through his life.

Nate Press, always a force to be reckoned with, surpasses himself as Horst, the pink triangle of a prisoner who falls in love with, and is loved by, Max. Press has the difficult task of providing some of the rare bits of humor in this play, bits needed to give us all time to catch our breath from the fearsome rush of dread that swamps the stage.

The seduction of Max by Horst is one of the most vivid and rapture-filled thing I’ve ever seen on a stage. Both actors do it flawlessly.

The interplay between these two men is easily recognized by anyone who has ever been in love. In almost impossible circumstances, they let their love flourish and flower, even using it, as Max does, to garner special treatment from Nazi guards.

Posy Knight designed a spectacularly spare set and designed the evocative projections that only enhanced the action on the stage. She showed remarkable restraint in allowing the projections to help, not overwhelm, the action on the stage.

The only difficulties faced by this show are the tendencies toward overacting by some of the characters. Sometimes, most times, less is more in creating characters who are both memorable and believable.

"Bent" runs through July 19 and information on showtimes and tickets is available here.