Indecent
Indecent is a play written by Paula Vogel and directed by Rebecca Taichman. “It was choreographed by David Forman and features music by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva”(Wikipedia, April 23rd 2023). It is about how God of Vengeance, a play written by Sholem Asch was written, produced, and received. Taichman had first looked at God of Vengeance while she was studying theater at graduate school at Yale. The play stuck with Taichman long enough to become her senior thesis and would eventually lead her to work with Paula Vogel on Indecent. When working on Indecent, both Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman knew that they wanted it to be a three step process. It was first commissioned by the Americans Revolutions Initiative. The play also got another fellowship from Macdowell Colony. It was also in the Sundance Theater Lab in 2013. The play was commissioned by the Yale Repertory Theater, where it was first shown in October of 2015. After being performed at the Repertory Theater it then went on to La Jolla Playhouse where it was further developed and played from November 13th to December 10th 2015. It’s supposed third and final stop where it would be workshopped once more at the off-broadway Vineyard Theater. The play premiered at the Vineyard Theater on May 17th 2016. Indecent made its way to the Cort Theater on Broadway on April 18th 2017. The play premiered 94 years after God of Vengeance made its debut on Broadway. This was the first time a play written by Paula Vogel had made it on Broadway. The play was supposed to close on June 25th, but it was so popular that producers extended the run to August 6th. Indecent was filmed for television on August 3rd 2017. On July 27th 2018, an Israeli production of the play opened in the Cameri Theater in Tel Aviv. In January of 2019, the cast recorded an album which was dropped on January 25th 2019. Then later that year, from June 5th to July 7th, the play was performed in LA. Then in 2022 the play was produced at San Francisco Playhouse from September 22nd to November 25th. This production was co-produced with the Yiddish Theater Ensemble. The play also won a Pulitzer Prize.
Rehearsals
As the play began rehearsing the actors began to input more of themselves into the characters and rehearsals would run longer. Indecent mostly uses ensemble work and has a cast of seven members including two composers and musicians. Paula Vogel (the writer) has been working on Indecent for seven years and Rebecca Taichman (the director) has been working on God of Vengeance and then Indecent for over two decades. Most of the original cast from the off broadway version stayed on however they did add Ben Cherry, Andrea Goss, and Eleanor Reissa when the play went to Broadway.
Awards
While on Broadway the play won awards for Best Director Rebeca Taichman and lighting design in a play by Christopher Akerlind.
While playing in San Francisco the play was praised by The San francisco chronicle who gave the play the newspaper’s highest rating.
The play also won awards for Best Play off Broadway Alliance award, Best director Rebeca Taichman outer critics circle award, Best director Rebeca Taichman OBIE award, Best lighting design Christopher Akerlind Drama Desk Award, Best Choreographer David Dorfman Lucille Lortel Award, Dorothy Loudel Award for excellence in the theater Katrina Lenk theater world award, and the 2017 recipient Katrina Lenk Clarence Derwent award.
Production History – God of Vengeance
In 1907 the play Got Fun Nekome which translated from Yiddish into English is God of Vengeance was read to I.L. Peretz by its writer Sholem Asch. Peretz, misunderstanding the play and not wanting people to see Jewish people as bad due to the current rising hate, told Aschto burn it. The play itself was about a jewish brothel owner and his family. The owner’s daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes and they begin to have a secret romantic relationship. The play features a scene where the two lead female characters confess their love for each other in the rain. This became important in future productions of the play as America was homophobic and requested that if the play was to go on Broadway the scene needed to be removed. Asch goes on to put the play on in St. Petersburg and Moscow where it became popular. It eventually becomes so popular that it goes onto New York. In 1914 Sholem Asch left Europe and moved to New York. When the war is done he goes back to Europe and is shaken to see how the Jewish communities are desecrated. In 1921-1922 there was a movement growing to stop lewdness on stage; it gathered force and forced many plays to shut down. This came after the Emergency Quota Act which severely restricted the number of immigrants who came from eastern and southern Europe going into the US. In 1922 God of Vengeance was translated from Polish Yiddish into English by Isaac Goldberg. The play then went on to be performed at the Province Playhouse before becoming popular enough to move onto the Greenwich Village Theater. On February 19th 1923 God of Vengeance opened in the Apollo theater. The Apollo theater is now known as the Ford Center for the Performing Arts. The rain scene is cut from the play which turns a loving relationship between two Jewish Lesbians into a manipulative one. On March 6th mid performance a police officer informs both the cast and the producer that they have been indicted for obscenity. A Rabbi complained to the police about the play and that is how the indictment process began. The cast’s bail is posted the morning after they were arrested and they make it to the theater in time for them to perform their matinee. On May 23rd 1923 God of Vengeance went on trial and was found guilty. The verdict was overturned after the appeal. In 1924 the National Origins act and the Asian Exclusion act both prevented more immigration to the US. Also in 1924 The Society For Human Rights was founded as a place for people within the US to seek equality for being gay. Police pressure shuts it down soon. NYS passed the Wales Padlock Law which prohibited plays from “dealing with the subject of sex degeneracy, or perversion.” This law which was not declared unconstitutional until 1976 left lesbian characters in plays to be seen as symbols of corruption and evil as well as being a vice for bad things. Back in Europe in the early 1940s the play was performed in the Lodz Ghetto before around 600,000 Jews were shipped off to industrial genocide. In 1942 as the holocaust began Sholem Asch the writer of God of Vengeance forbade it from ever being performed again.
In 1943 Sholem Asch was the first Yiddish writer to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
