Happy Passover!

Indecent opens in Sholem Asch’s
bedroom where he and his wife are
discussing his play and sexuality. It
covers the play’s journey and ends in
1952 in Connecticut, five years before
Asch’s death.
As Vogel worked on the storyline,
she felt having a three-piece klezmer
band was essential. She listened to
several hundred songs and chose
some to infuse in the story and she
wrote the play around the songs.
Although Asch’s play was writ-
ten almost 100 years ago, and Vogel
began writing her play seven years
ago, Indecent couldn’t be more timely
today, with the rise of neo-Nazi views,
the plight of immigrants and the
dissolving of gay rights. “I couldn’t
have imagined it would have been
as current as it is,” she says. “I didn’t
expect in 2017 the same conditions
of anti-Semitism, immigration and
homophobia would again create a
perfect storm,”
Vogel considers Indecent part of her
heritage. Her father was Jewish and
her mother Catholic, and she had a
very close relationship with her pater-
nal grandparents.
“Growing up, I increasingly felt
more Jewish as I encountered anti-
Semitism, such as watching my father
get turned away from memberships,
hearing anti-Semitic words and seeing
the quota system in higher education,”
says Vogel, born in Washington, D.C.,
and raised in Maryland. “I married
into a Jewish family, and as younger
members turn toward an observance
of faith, I, too, am drawn toward my
Jewish identity.”
In high school, Vogel became inter-

ested in playwriting. “I wandered
into a room that turned out to be
the drama club,” she says. “Within a
half hour, I never wanted to leave the
room. I tried acting but I was terrible,
and I ended up being a playwright.”
After attending Bryn Mawr
College, Vogel transferred to Catholic
University to enroll in its theater
department. (She told them she was
Jewish so she didn’t have to take reli-
gion classes.) She earned an M.A. at
Cornell, and after that led the gradu-
ate playwriting program at Brown
University. From 2008-2012, she was
the chair of the playwriting depart-
ment at Yale. Last year she earned her
Ph.D. from Cornell. Her first play was
produced in 1976.
Vogel’s 12th play, the heartbreak-
ing Baltimore Waltz, was the one that
gave her national recognition. Set in
a hospital room, a brother and sister
embark on an imaginary European
trip. It was a tribute to her brother,
Carl, who died of AIDS in 1988.
In 1998, Vogel won a Pulitzer Prize
in drama for her play How I Learned
to Drive, about a pedophile uncle who
teaches his young niece to drive.
Vogel is at her best when she’s
pushing the envelope. Her work,
which often focuses on complicated
and controversial subjects, is hardly
done.
Vogel has a few projects in the
pipeline, including a play about her
childhood apartments in D.C. and
Maryland, and the characters from
many walks of life she met during
those formative years. Given her track
record, it’s sure to give audiences
something to think about. •

May you be blessed with
happiness,prosperity
and good health!

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April 6 • 2017

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