Sholem Asch – Playwright of God of Vengeance
Sholem Asch was born in Poland in 1880 and is one of ten children. He was an Orthodox jew and received a traditional Jewish education. However, Asch became interested in the world outside the shtetel. Asch learned to read German and then the Latin alphabet. He then began studying German classical and Hebrew Haskalah literature despite his parents’ attempts to prevent him from reading secular progressive literature. Once Asch was a young adult he began to write letters for townspeople in Poland and then wrote his works in German and Hebrew. However Asch encountered famous Yiddish writer, I.L Peretz, Asch was encouraged to write Yiddish stories based on Jewish life in Eastern Europe. After taking this advice Asch’s first Yiddish story was published in 1900 called Moyshele and in 1903 published a collection of stories Shelkter Tsayk. Asch originally focused on writing short stories discussing the sad life of Jews in the Pale of Settlement between 1900 and 1913. Although after a trip to Palestine, Asch began to write spiritual stories including Mayselekh fun Khumesh as well as Undzer Globyn. In 1910 he moved to America and became a naturalized citizen in 1920. After moving to France and then Palestine he eventually returned to the US in 1938. It was in the US where Asch earned his Ph.D. at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Once settled in New York Asch took an interest in Biblical literature and theology. From 1939-1949 Asch wrote a trilogy that dealt with the Jewish founders of Christianity titled The Nazarene, The Apostle, and Mary. His first work was published in Yiddish and English, while his two later works were published in English. While Asch was a celebrity amongst the Yiddish writers, he received a lot of criticism among the Jewish community because of his works about the Christian faith and reclaiming them as jewish. However, his works were received well by Jews who were progressive, English-speaking, and born in America. The Yiddish community gave a lot of criticism to Asch which led The Daily Forward, a Yiddish language newspaper to drop Asch and refuse to publish any of his works. Asch proceeded to get more hate when he did an interview with a Christian newspaper explaining his fascination with Jesus and while it was hard to write about Jesus in his Jewish shtetel, in America found new freedom for spiritual truth. While the Yiddish community was quick to express their feelings toward Asch and Abraham Cahan, editor of The Daily Forward, suggested boycotting Asch’s writings and publishing heated attacks on Asch in his newspaper. However, most of the public praised Asch for being open-minded with his work.
Sholem Asch had published work before 1907, but it was in 1907 when God of Vengeance was released that he gained a lot of attention. In God of Vengeance, Asch would write about the Jewish immigrant experience as well as prostitution and lesbianism. God of Vengeance broke Jewish theater norms by having a lesbian relationship between the daughter of a brother owner and a prostitute. Audiences were attracted to Asch’s works because of his approach to a scandalous subject. In 1923 God of Vengeance was performed and the entire cast was arrested on obscenity charges despite the play’s success in Europe. Asch in an open letter discussed how he views God of Vengeance and the attention it received. Asch mentioned that he wrote the play at twenty-one years old. “ I was not concerned whether I wrote a moral or immoral play.” (Open letter, paragraph 1). Asch mentions he got criticism from Russia, and Germany along with several other countries regarding it being too artistically moral. Asch also opened up about how he was initially hesitant to present the play in English because he was worried whether or not Americans were “ sufficiently interested or adequately instructed to accept the play” (Open letter, paragraph 2). Asch several times throughout the interview discusses that his concerns for the play and what he wanted it to be was an artistic, true play that would also “bring out the innocent, longing for sin, and the sinful, dreaming for purity” (Open letter, paragraph 3). Asch also spoke to the criticism regarding the statement that God of Vengeance is a play against jews. Asch went on to say that it has been in the repertoire of any Jewish stage. “The God Of Vengeance is not a milieu play – it is a play with an idea” (Open letter, paragraph 4). The God of Vengeance made an impact in many ways and Asch made sure to defend and support it regardless of the feedback it received.
Paula Vogel – Playwright of Indecent
Paula Vogel was born in Washington D.C. on November 16, 1951, however, she grew up in Maryland. Paula had two older brothers Mark and Carl who later died of AIDS. In 1962, Paula’s parents divorced and Paula and Carl lived with their mom and Mark their dad. Carl became a father figure to Paula. It was because of Carl that Paula did well in school and earned a scholarship from Bryn Mawr College in 1969, although she later transferred to the Catholic University of America. After college, Paula went on to graduate school at Cornell University. A couple of of years later, Paula began her career as a lecturer at Cornell University in 1979 for Women’s Studies and Theater. That same year, Paula received a playwriting fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts and again in 1981 from MacDowell Colony. Although, a year later, Paula was fired from Cornell, which allowed her to pursue more theatrical endeavors. In 1984, Paula took on a position at Brown University as the director of the graduate playwriting program. It was also at Brown where she met and eventually married her spouse Anne Fausto Sterling; the two of them were married on September 26, 2004. Paula stayed at Brown University for two decades. During Paula’s time at Brown, she helped develop a nationally recognized education center for theater, which ultimately led to the Brown/Trinity Repertory Company Consortium along with Oskar Eustis. However, in 2008, Paula left Brown to be the Chair of the Playwriting in Residence at Yale Repertory Theater.
Paula Vogel made her Broadway debut in 2016 with Indecent. Vogel has not held back from exploring taboo topics such as the AIDS crisis and child abuse. Vogel earned her PhD from Cornell in 2016. She went on to produce new plays every few years. Two of her more well-known plays include The Baltimore Waltz, a play about the AIDS crisis dedicated to her brother Carl which she won an Obie in 1992, and How I Learned to Drive about child abuse in 1997. In 2017 she was nominated for a Tony for Indecent, which included Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance. In an interview with Vineyard Theater, Vogel talks about her process and experience with God of Vengeance and incorporating it into Indecent. Vogel initially read God of Vengeance when she was 23 years old and was compelled by Asch’s approach to addressing Judaism and anti-semitism. Not only did Asch write a controversial play about Judaism, but in addition, a love story about two women. Vogel found God of Vengeance compelling because of what people, especially the Christian community would think. “It did exactly what plays should do- it provoked people into talking” (Vogel, paragraph 3). Vogel feels like Asch would feel respected and that Indecent has empathy for a Jewish and Yiddish writer at the beginning of the 20th century. When asked what Vogel wants the audience to take away from Indecent, her response was “I don’t think of this as a grim play; I think about it as a love story in terrible times” (Vogel, paragraph 11). Vogel expressed that community theater, music, and the arts have and the power that comes with them as a way for people to change their worldviews. Vogel received much recognition from Indecent and brought an important discussion back on stage. While times have changed since when Asch originally put on God of Vengeance, the issue of antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ has not gone away and it was important to Vogel to bring this topic back on stage.
