arts&life

CAROL ROSEGG

theater

Indecent

ALICE BURDICK SCHWEIGER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

ABOVE: Indecent explores events
in 1923’s God of Vengeance,
which featured the first lesbian
kiss on Broadway. RIGHT: The
cast of Indecent.

details

Indecent opened April 4 at The
Cort Theater in New York City.
(212) 239-6200.
Indecentbroadway.com.

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April 6 • 2017

P

aula Vogel’s powerful
drama Indecent explores
a controversial time in
American theater and Jewish
culture. The play with music cen-
ters around events surrounding
the 1923 Broadway production
of Sholem Asch’s provocative,
groundbreaking play God of
Vengeance.
Written in 1906 in Yiddish
and translated for the
American stage, Asch’s play
follows a Jewish couple who
run a brothel in their base-
ment and whose daughter falls
deeply in love with one of their
female prostitutes. It also fea-
tured the first lesbian kiss on
Broadway. It caused an uproar
when it debuted in New York,
and the producer and cast were
arrested and put on trial for
obscenity.
Indecent sheds a light on
that scandal. The play, which
has transferred from the Off-
Broadway stage to Broadway,
opened at the Cort Theater in
New York City April 4.
“The charges were initiated
by Rabbi Silverman of Temple
Emanuel in New York City,”
Vogel says. “During that time,

jn

Playwright Paula Vogel

there was a prevalence of anti-
Semitism. In the news, Henry
Ford was talking about Jewish
conspiracies of taking over bank-
ing, theater and music. It was the
perfect storm for anti-Semitism
and Rabbi Silverman feared the
theme would promote more
hatred against Jews.”
Asch had been an internation-
ally renowned writer at the time
of the trial and, because of his
fame, he wasn’t arrested with the
rest of the team. But the scandal
had an impact on his career.
God of Vengeance was a story
that captured the attention of
Vogel when she was a graduate

student at Cornell.
“A professor looked at me the
first week and said ‘You should
read God of Vengeance,’” Vogel
recalls. “It was his way of saying I
know that you are gay and I want
you to know your history. I stood
in the library turning the pages
thinking how a young newlywed
man wrote this play in 1906 —
and it astonished me.”
As a playwright, Vogel always
wanted to bring Asch’s story to
the stage. And then she met the
perfect creative partner — direc-
tor Rebecca Taichman, who is
Jewish, has a grandfather who
was a Yiddish poet and she her-
self had written her master’s the-
sis at Yale about the trial.
“Seven years ago, I got a call
from Rebecca,” Vogel says. “She
said she’d always wanted to do a
play about the obscenity trial but
needed someone to write it. My
name had been suggested. I told
her I think there is an even larger
story to tell and she agreed —
then gave me the trial transcripts
and all of her research.”
Asch had written a second
act that clearly showed the two
women in love, kissing and
openly declaring their love. “The

Yiddish theater embraced the
play with Asch’s original inten-
tion. No one said it was obscene,
but Harry Weinberger, the New
York producer, felt they couldn’t
represent two women in love,”
Vogel says.

CAROL ROSEGG

Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright Paula
Vogel discusses
her newest play on
Broadway, called one
of the best plays of
the year.

