It must have been two years ago when I watched PBS’s Great Performances of Indecent and my life changed forever. After the first viewing I immediately watched it again and every night thereafter for over a month. My fiancé quietly wanted to kill me as she lovingly let me indulge in this masterpiece to my heart’s desire, until we both could recite almost every scene by memory. I have never seen something so perfect, so rich, and so fulfilling as this play. Which is probably why she gave me my own copy of the play for Christmas. Reading it, I was just as moved.
In 1906 Sholem Asch wrote The God of Vengeance, a story of a Jewish brothel owner who is trying to marry his daughter off to a rabbi’s son, but his daughter, Rifkele, is in love with one of the prostitutes, Manke. The play featured the first lesbian kiss to appear on Broadway. It toured all over Europe and then when it came to America, after playing in the Apollo Theatre, the cast and producers were convicted on charges of obscenity. Indecent is a play about the history of The God of Vengeance. It’s about art, censorship, anti-Semitism, and love. There are seven actors – the troupe – who play all of the characters. Aside from Lemml, the stage manager, each member of the troupe plays multiple different roles. Indecent starts with Madje Asch reading The God of Vengeance and encouraging her husband to publish it. We see the first read through, in which Lemml is introduced to theater and falls in love with the play immediately, and then we follow its success as it tours all throughout Europe. The play eventually makes it to the stages of America where difficulties arise. In the background of the play’s journey, Sholem Asch has become a recluse. After visiting Europe on a fact finding trip in which he witnessed the horrendous acts occurring from the holocaust, he reported what he saw and was told by the state department, simply, that these things happen. Too distraught by the mass murder of his own people and the indifference from the American government, Asch didn’t defend his play, God of Vengeance or the cast who acted in it at trial. The troupe returns to Europe and continues to act in The God of Vengeance in attics and “all sorts of spaces” up until the end – when they are waiting in line at a concentration camp. The story jumps to 1952, when a much older Sholem Ash is introduced to a young man who wants to produce The God of Vengeance, something Ash can’t condone in light of the Holocaust. Six million have left the theater… The last scene, Asch and the ghost of Lemml, watch the rain scene in Yiddish (the native language of God of Vengeance) and oh, how breath taking.
There are so many layers in Indecent. One of the functions of poetry is to be able to give the most meaning by using the least amount of words. It’s a measure or precision and a balance of beauty. This is what Indecent has accomplished on so many levels. The shame, the censorship, the cultural diversity. Plus the absolute purity of lesbian love between two women. How was a 26-year old man in the early 1900’s able to understand that? I don’t know, but that love is emphasized in Indecent.
The truth is, I’ve re-written this review over a dozen times. There’s just so much to unpack and I don’t think I can do that adequately here. I wish I was in college again so I could spend a semester writing papers on this play. Perhaps that’s too nerdy of an admission. I will say this: Indecent has left me questioning whether I will ever find something in my life as brilliant and stimulating. Of course, art is subjective and one may think such a proclamation overdramatic, but it is not often that we find art that covers so much ground – so much history and heartache, and then, like a lighthouse, those two girls…I just think, at the very least, this should be a play experienced by everyone.
Play: www.amazon.com/Indecent
Watch Indecent PBS Special: www.amazon.com/Indecent
Follow Paula Vogue on Twitter: @VogelPaula