HomeArts & LifestyleSavage examines Nazi war criminal's "cure" for homosexuality

Savage examines Nazi war criminal’s “cure” for homosexuality

SavageFrom June 29th – July 23rd 2016 at Above the Arts Theatre on Great Newport Street you can see a piece of new writing by Claudio Macor.

Savage details the ramifications of the work of Danish doctor Carl Peter Værnet and his ill-conceived “cure” for homosexuality.

Værnet injected testosterone into the testicles of live human subjects without anaesthetic, and was given a prominent post at the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, where he experimented on 17 inmates.

After the liberation by Allied forces, Dr Værnet escaped to South America, where he continued to experiment on thousands of live subjects, with the full knowledge of both the British and Danish authorities.

Image supplied by Chris Hislop PR
Image supplied by Chris Hislop PR

In Claudio Macor’s new drama, we meet two young men directly affected by Værnet’s experiments – their glamorous, hedonistic life in 1930s Copenhagen as well as the tragic treatment of one of them by the Nazis.

Confirmed cast include Alexander Huetson (Phil Willmott’s Encounter, Above the Stag), Gary Fannin (The Reduced Shakespeare Company; Spectre; 24: Live Another Day) and Nic Kyle (The Grand Tour, Finborough Theatre; Closer to Heaven, Union Theatre).

Doctor Carl Peter Værnet remains largely unwritten about and unresearched, apart from a ground-breaking piece by Guardian journalist Peter Tatchell in 2015, who will be taking part in a post-show Q & A.

Tickets can be booked through Arts Theatre West End.

With quack ‘therapy’ and religiously-inspired ‘pray away the gay’ sessions remaining routine even in the west, Savage promises to be a timely and consciousness-raising piece of theatre.

Greg Jameson
Greg Jameson
Book editor, with an interest in cult TV.

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