Under the precise and confident direction of Mira Hirsch, this multitalented ensemble breathes life into dozens of diverse characters who dance, sing and occasionally play instruments. Dread and horror hang over the early scenes, and we know full well that the near future will bring the Holocaust, among the worst genocides in history with 6 million Jews murdered. In Indecent, the young, naive and idealistic Asch (embodied compassionately by Brandon Michael Mayes) declares at his drama’s first read-through that his mission is to create Jewish characters who are “complex human beings,” not just paragons of virtue as his peers might prefer. (It holds the distinction of introducing the first romantic woman-to-woman kiss on a Broadway stage.) Andrew Benator (left) plays the stage manager, Lemml, with Brandon Michael Mayes as playwright Sholem Asch. It was set in a brothel and contained, at its center, a tender love story between two women. God of Vengeance was controversial for several reasons, largely that it defied the expectations of the average, everyday, WASP-y Broadway patron. The entire cast, producer and the theater itself were found guilty and held accountable for what the New York judge decried as “an indecent, obscene and immoral play, exhibition and drama.” Its calamitous 1923 opening was attended by audiences and law enforcement. This “play within a play” resurrects and re-examines Polish–Jewish scribe Sholem Asch’s controversial early-20th century work God of Vengeance and, in doing so, makes a convincing case for why art must push boundaries.Īsch’s God of Vengeance had a successful run in Europe before making its way to Broadway, where it was immediately picked apart and censored, with crucial scenes cut and dooming it to failure. This number talks about the assimilation of Jewish immigrants in America. “If people get upset,” Vogel once said, “it’s because the play is working.” The multitalented “Indecent” ensemble embodies dozens of diverse characters who dance, sing and play instruments. And her masterpiece, How I Learned to Drive, which won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and finally reaches Broadway in April, is a darkly funny, disturbing and poignant tale about incest, sexual abuse and trauma. Her 1992 work The Baltimore Waltz is an often broadly comic satire about HIV/AIDS and grief. Vogel isn’t one to shy away from an opportunity to challenge preconceived notions of how to discuss and portray difficult topics. Theatrical Outfit’s sublime new production of the drama runs through March 29. Celebrated playwright Paula Vogel’s Indecent cheekily calls itself the “true story of a little Jewish play.” As anyone familiar with Vogel’s body of work may suspect, this piece of theater is far from “little” in its core subject matter: anti-Semitism, xenophobia, genocide, the definition of art, freedom of expression and censorship.

Indecent by Paula Vogel