The new Broadway play Indecent takes an impressionistic look at a controversial moment in Broadway history.
The play is based on the events surrounding Polish-Jewish writer Sholem Asch’s groundbreaking 1907 Yiddish masterwork God of Vengeance (Got fun nekome) – from its inception in Warsaw, Poland and its evolution throughout Europe and the Lower East Side to its explosive run on the Great White Way in 1923, and beyond. In Europe, the play was popular enough to be translated into Polish, German, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Czech and Norwegian.
It was a controversial play when it was translated into English and bowed at the Apollo Theatre on West 42nd St. Set in a brothel, the play includes Jewish prostitutes, the first lesbian kiss on a Broadway stage, and the hurling of a Torah across the stage. The run was cut short by six weeks when the cast and producer were arrested, jailed, indicted and convicted on obscenity charges. The conviction was successfully appealed. Later, it was performed as an act of artistic affirmation in an attic in the Łódz Ghetto of German-occupied Poland during World War II.
With music and humor, Indecent explores the loss of Yiddish theater and the ever-changing mores of audiences. Playwright Paula Vogel, also a Pulitzer winner is marking her Broadway debut and provides the voice and structure from which the story can be told. Indecent examines artistic struggles, but it is an immigrant story about a time in America when immigrants were being pushed out.
The superb 7-member ensemble portrays multiple roles and is accompanied by a klezmer band of 3 onstage musicians – playing a variety of instruments. The production is enhanced by the intricate and often symbolic direction by Rebecca Taichman and choreography by David Dorfman. Some of the characters are composites, while most are real-life figures. Screen projections guide the audience through the constant shift in personae.
Based on the real-life "Ararat" Jewish Kleinkunst Theatre of Łódź, a theater troupe of actors rising from the ashes tell the story behind God of Vengeance. The fictional Lemml, a former tailor and now stage manager, who functions as the narrator/master of ceremonies, along with the imagined company of Vera, Otto, Halina, Mendel, Chana and Avram (portrayed by Richard Topol, Mimi Lieber, Tom Nellis, Katrina Lenk, Steven Rattazzi, Adina Verson and Max Gordon Moore) propel the story – making an indelible and lingering impression.
The production received three Tony Award nominations, with Rebecca Taichman winning in the "Best Direction of a Play category and Christopher Akerlind for "Lighting Design."
Indecent will end its run at the Cort Theatre on August 6 and is sure to enjoy subsequent new stagings at regional theaters across the United States.
