By Cayleigh Boniger
There are some plays that are easy to distill into what is essentially a single essence: family drama, crisis of identity, agit prop. Paula Vogel’s Indecent, performed at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre and directed by Risa Brainin, defies such categorization, layered as it is with the intersection of art, censorship, the criminalization of love, and cultural identity, among other themes. Perhaps the line that best gets to the heart of this production is, “When one writes a play, one is no longer alone.”
Indecent follows the story of the Yiddish play The God of Vengeance, its playwright Sholem Asch, the Polish theatre company that plays it across Europe and then New York, and the reaction it causes. What makes this almost unknown play so special? The God of Vengeance revolves around a love between two women, one of whom happens to be a prostitute. Oh, and Asch wrote it in 1906. Although controversial, the play was met with acclaim across Europe, but when the company makes it to New York, the keepers of the Great White Way find the content, well, indecent.
Emily Daly and Meg Pryor
The telling of this story, and the stories encompassed within, requires a group effort, and the cast of the Public’s production delivers. While Maury Ginsberg as stage manager Lemml provides the heart of the company with his belief and adoration of the play they perform, his is not a standalone performance. In fact, Lemml is the only part that does not require doubling. Emily Daly playing the company ingenue takes on a number of roles, but she deftly distinguishes her roles as Madje Asch, actresses Ruth and Virginia, and perhaps most importantly of all, Rifkele, one of the lovers in The God of Vengeance. Meg Pryor as actress Dine and the other lover in the play within the play, Manke, gently guides and revels in both Ruth and Rifkele.
Maury Ginsberg
Integral to the production, although often just outside the action, are the ever-present klezmers, played by Erikka Walsh, Janice Coppola, and Spiff Wiegand. These skillful musicians help to transition from scene to scene and set the mood. They bring up the energy for a playful cabaret in Berlin and slow things down for the intimacy between lovers. Their presence ensures that a story that could skew very serious includes a great deal of levity, fun, and even celebration.
Narelle Sissons’ set design seems deceptively simple at first glance – a stage clearly meant to be a stage in a theater. Old-fashioned footlights line the edges of the thrust, and scattered at the corners are chairs ready for use. But as the play progresses, a platform pops out of centerstage that gives the company a table, a bed, a stoop outside of an apartment. The footlights prove to be more than just a feature that grounds us in the setting and are used to clever effect for the touring of the play. And even with these small surprises, Sissons still manages to have one last trick up her sleeve.
Throughout the performance, projections are thrown onto the back wall or the partially drawn curtain, describing the setting, sometimes translating lyrics (yes, there is song and dance, but make no mistake this is no musical), and indicating whether the characters are speaking in Yiddish, German, or English. This last feature affords a unique opportunity to illustrate the struggles of integrating into new cultures and the ways in which we reject those who don’t look or sound like us. When in Berlin, Lemml clearly struggles to speak in German, fearing to look provincial, but when given permission to speak in Yiddish, his words flow freely and his excitement breaks through. Arguments over language strain the relationship between Ruth and Dine, but also help to heal them.
But the struggle over language is symptomatic of deeper cultural struggles. The significance of a play written originally in Yiddish and about such a profound subject brings this cast of characters together and bonds them together as a family. They want to share this story in order to create greater understanding of what it means to be Jewish to the world at large. But Broadway’s demands that they give up their language and sanitize their play threatens to tear them apart and creates factions in the Jewish community. And yet the need for truth and the beauty of love keeps them alive even in the darkest moments of oppression.
Robert Zukerman and the cast
Indecent is a frightfully relevant piece in the midst of a rise in visible hatred for those who differ from us, for the things we don’t understand. Even more heartbreaking is its relevance in a city that has experienced the all too recent loss of eleven lives in the very community Vogel’s play champions. But it is hard to imagine a better tribute to the members of the Tree of Life Synagogue, so full of life and light and a firm reminder that theatre ensures we are not alone in the dark.
For more information on tickets, visit PPT’s homepage.
Categories: Archived Reviews