Scenes of the play Indecent dip in and out of Sholem Asch’s story with his wife Magda (Molly Osbourne), and often incorporating the same repeated scene from God of Vengeance  as it is performed across Europe.  Someone suggests, “Like the kosher from the traif, keep the two worlds apart!”  We go on a thrilling tour of Europe to 1907 Berlin with its licentious Cabaret decadence, to St Petersburg in 1911 to Constantinople in 1914 with God of Vengeance.

In 1920, the scene changes to American immigration controls at Ellis Island, New York, people wearing labels with an identification number.  Later, the whole cast in Hasidic male dress kick dance and tear off their payos or ringlets and shave their beards to fit in with Americans.   Asch’s play is produced in Yiddish at The Bowery in New York.  In 1922 there is a transfer of the play but this time in English, opening at Provincetown Playhouse. 

The rain scene is censored by the US producers.  Asch goes back to Europe in 1923 and witnesses the pogroms but refuses to talk about this.  In New York the play’s producers and cast are prosecuted for obscenity and they are found guilty, but the verdict is later overturned on appeal.   In a most effective staging in this very visual piece, the words of the guilty verdict are reproduced on a slide, white letters on black and projected across the full height and width of the stage and the row of defendants.  Later in the play a similar projection is used with Yiddish script.  Asch is the first Yiddish writer to be nominated for the Nobel Prize. God of Vengeance plays in the Warsaw Ghetto and we see two women escape from the concentration camp transport.   The Aschs move to London in 1952 after the House Un-American Activities Committee digs up Sholem Asch’s brief flirtation with communism many years before.

Finally we get to see the rain scene where Manke and Rivkele come together in their nightdresses in the pouring rain, real rain and real puddles flooding the stage.  

Indecent had me on the edge of my seat with its whirling choreography and historical events.  The ensemble performances are stellar and Rebecca Taichman’s direction is full of clarity. 

Highly recommended.