First Look: American Beauty's Wes Bentley Heads Off-Broadway in Venus in Fur

A play based on the novel that inspired the term sado-masochism? We’re intrigued—and doubly so when we discovered that David Ives’ Venus in Fur features the off-Broadway debut of Wes Bentley, who gave an unforgettable performance as the young drug-dealing photographer Ricky Fitts in American Beauty. Classic Stage Company is presenting this latest collaboration between Ives and director Walter Bobbie, with Bentley as a modern-day playwright who adapts the 1870 erotic classic by Sacher-Masoch (S&M, get it?). Newcomer Nina Arianda co-stars as a mysterious actress who arrives (leather and lace in hand) to audition. For a First Look at this provocative new play, which opens on January 26, click on!