The ten-man troupe literally rose from the ashes to open Paula Vogel’s Indecent, a play that covers all the major shames and taboos of the 20th century, writes Michael Holland.
Three of the ten breakaway to form a klezmer band that provides a soundtrack to take us from 1907, when Sholem Asch reads his new play to a small group of writers, to the mid-40s.
The play, God of Vengeance, includes lesbianism and divides his audience. Asch is advised to ‘burn it’. He, on the other hand, sees it as an important and honest piece of work that shows true love between two women, so finds actors to perform it around Warsaw, then Europe, where it becomes a huge success.
The next stop is New York City after WWI broke out, where, again, opinions were divided over the first ever kiss between women on a theatre stage.
Like any country, America has its prudes and racists. There had recently been moves to stop immigration and plans to stop ‘lewdness’ on the stage. Nevertheless, the play outgrows the smaller venues until in 1923 it opens in Broadway after the kissing scene is cut.
This, conversely, merely deletes the feelings of love building between the two that lead to the loving embrace, leaving only what critics now see as a sordid affair of someone taking advantage of an ingenue. The police raid the theatre during a performance and the cast are arrested for obscenity.
Laws are soon passed in New York State that prohibits plays ‘dealing with to subject of sex, degeneracy or perversion’. With so much opposition the troupe of players returns to Poland just in time to get caught up in the rise of Naziism. We last see them performing God of Vengeance, wearing yellow stars, in the ?ód? Ghetto before they are disappeared.
A backdrop of dates are projected to guide us through the turbulent life of this play and its players. As the troupe return to the ashes from whence they came, we are once again reminded that the 20th century troubles of nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia are very much still with us today.
Finbar Lynch as the stage manager Lemml gently takes our collective hand to walk us through; softly-spoken when we want to shout, calm when we are angry. Always there to show that there is light in the darkest of tunnels.
Poignant and painful in equal measure, Indecent is not an easy watch. Its staging sometimes confuses. It was only the oft-repeated scenes that let us know that they were performing God of Vengeance in a succession of European theatres, and not just being melodramatic for Indecent. But it is an important play and we are lucky that director Rebecca Taichman, who got a Tony Award for directing this in 2017, has come here to direct Indecent for its UK premiere.
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