Indecent (play)

The play was commissioned by Yale Repertory Theatre and American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and received the 2015 Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award.[2]

Indecent had its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre in October 2015[3] as a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse, from November 13 to December 10, 2015.[4][5][6]

The play had its New York premiere Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre, opening on May 17, 2016, following previews from April 27. It played a limited engagement to June 12, 2016.[7] It was directed by Rebecca Taichman, choreographed by David Dorfman and featured music by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva. The cast featured Katrina Lenk, Mimi Lieber, Max Gordon Moore, Tom Nelis, Steven Rattazzi, Richard Topol and Adina Verson. For this production, Taichmann received the 2017 Obie Award for Directing presented by the American Theatre Wing.[8] The production transferred to Broadway where it opened at the Cort Theatre on April 18, 2017, following previews from April 4, by Producers Daryl Roth and Cody Lassen.[9] This marks the first time a play by Vogel has appeared on Broadway.[10] The cast remained from the Off-Broadway production, who were joined by Ben Cherry, Andrea Goss, and Eleanor Reissa.[9] The play was initially announced shortly after the Tony Awards to be closing on June 25, but on June 23 the Producers extended the run to August 6.[11]

The Broadway production was filmed for television on August 3, 2017 for a scheduled release in January 2018.[12] However, PBS moved the broadcast date ahead to November 17, 2017, pushing back a previously scheduled broadcast of Prince of Broadway until 2018.[13]

In January 2019, the producers of the Broadway production announced a cast album recording of the production with a release date of January 25th 2019.[14] The 22-track recording will include the original music featured in the play – composed by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva – as well as the songs sung during the production.[14] The album included original Broadway cast members Mimi Lieber, Katrina Lenk, Max Gordon Moore, Tom Nelis, Steven Rattazzi, Richard Topol and Adina Verson as well as musicians of the Broadway production, Matt Darriau, Gutkin and Halva, with Lenk on viola.[14]

An Israeli production premiered at the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv, opening on July 27, 2018. It was translated by Israeli playwright Yehoshua Sobol. The Cameri Theater also produced God of Vengeance in the same season.[15]

Lemml, the stage manager, introduces the troupe of actors and musicians who will be telling the story of a play that changed his life, playing many different parts in a retelling interspersed with songs. As the actors arrive on stage, ash pours out of their clothing.

In 1906, Polish-Jewish playwright Sholem Asch writes a play in Yiddish, The God of Vengeance, which concerns the love between a prostitute (Manke) and the daughter of the brothel's owner (Rifkele). His wife, Madje, is impressed. He holds the reading of the play in a local salon and receives mixed reactions from the participants; some are appalled by the lesbian storyline and the throwing of a Torah across the room. Some also worry it perpetuates anti-Semitism because it deals with prostitutes. Asche's only support comes from Lemml, a naive young tailor, who is moved to tears by the play. The play is eventually produced in Berlin with Lemml as stage manager, and starring the famous actor Rudolph Schildkraut. The play is successful throughout Europe and eventually heads to New York, where it has success in the original Yiddish.

However, the play then seeks a more commercial run, prompting an English translation. The actresses playing Rifkele and Manke, Reina and Dine, are in a romantic relationship offstage as well as on, but their relationship is tested when Reina is fired due to her problems learning English and is replaced by an inexperienced American actress. The play is transferred to Broadway, but Dine and Lemml are outraged when the producer alters the play, removing the love between the two women and suggesting instead that Manke seduces Rifkele to also become a prostitute. Asche returns from a visit to Europe, where he witnesses the rise of anti-Semitism, leaving him in a deep depression. He seeks counseling and becomes a recluse in his Staten Island home. In 1923, the play premieres on Broadway, but the entire cast is arrested for obscenity due to the content of the play. Asch is convinced this is an antisemitic plot, but the charges are revealed to have been organized by an American Rabbi scandalized by the play. Reina and Dine reconcile.

Asch, still depressed, refuses to testify in the actors' obscenity trial, ashamed that he approved changes to his play. He later reveals that he did not understand English well enough to know what the changes were. The actors are found guilty, and a heartbroken Lemml returns to Europe, taking the play's Yiddish manuscript with him. Asche remains in America and begins to receive letters from friends as they attempt to escape the Holocaust. In 1943, Lemml leads a tiny, starving troupe of actors in a performance of the play's second act in a tiny attic in the Lodz Ghetto. The performance is interrupted by the arrival of the Nazis. In his last moments, before the troupe is presumably executed, Lemml slips into a fantasy that Manke and Rifkele have escaped.

In 1952, Asche and Madje are packing up their house in Staten Island to relocate to England since Asche is being persecuted by the House Unamerican Activities Committee. A young Jewish-American theater student (played by the same actor who played Asche as a young man) visits Asche to receive permission to have a new translation of the God of Vengeance performed by his theatre group at Yale. Asche refuses, traumatized by the news of the Holocaust and convinced the play's time is done, but the young man refuses to accept defeat and promises to one day produce the play. As Asche stands in his empty living room, he sees a vision of Manke and Rifkele falling in love as they dance in the rain (this is not the first time this scene is acted out, but is the first time actual water is used for it).

Note: aside from Lemml, the rest of the cast is officially credited simply as "actor."

The director of the production, Rebecca Taichman, was a graduate student at the Yale School of Drama. For her graduate thesis, she wrote and directed a play based on the circumstances surrounding the Sholem Asch play God of Vengeance. Taichman titled her play The People vs. 'The God of Vengeance' which was presented at Yale Repertory Theatre in May 2000.[16]

Taichman explained: "I wrote my own version [of the play], but I'm just not a playwright, so it never quite clicked. But it never went away, I kept wanting to pursue it, and eventually I found Paula Vogel, who was equally interested in it, and we have since cocreated the piece."[17]

The play received positive reviews. In his review of the Broadway production for The New York Times, Ben Brantley said of the play "Indecent is, above all, decent, in the most complete sense of the word. It is virtuous, sturdily assembled, informative and brimming with good faith. The territory it covers in its one hour and 45 minutes is immense."[18] In her review for Newsday, Linda Winer asked "Has there ever been anything quite like Indecent, a play that touches — I mean deeply touches — so much rich emotion about history and the theater, anti-Semitism, homophobia, censorship, world wars, red-baiting and, oh, yes, joyful human passion?... It’s a gripping and entertaining show with laughter and tears and a real rainstorm in which two women from the marvelous 10-member cast re-enact what, in 1921, had been the first lesbian kiss on an American stage."[19]

Frank Rizzo, in his review of the Yale Rep production for the Hartford Courant wrote: "But at its heart it is the story of the transformative pull of art: Taichman's lyrical and image-rich direction, David Dorf's mesmerizing choreography and the atmospheric-setting music composed by Gutkin and Halva all add up to a compelling world of theatrical storytelling."[20]

• Official website (Archive)
• Indecent at the Internet Broadway Database
• Vogel, Paula (2018). Indecent (PDF). New York, New York: Dramatists Play Service. ISBN 978-0822236009.