Review: INDECENT (in Winnipeg at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre)

Live and in person at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Playing until March 8, 2025.

www.royalmtc.ca

Written by Paula Vogel

Directed by Kelly Thornton

Choreographer, Rachel Cooper

Set by Scott Penner

Costumes by Joseph Abetria

Lighting by Hugh Conacher

Sound by Justyn Stadnyk

Score and original music by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva

Cast: Josh Bellan

Mariam Bernstein

Andrew Cecan

Amy Lee

Katherine Matlashewski

Dov Mickelson

Alex Poch-Goldin

Musicians: Shiloh Hiebert

Myron Schultz

Orit Shimoni

A beautiful, sensitive production of a bold play about art, resilience and passionate love.

The Story.  Indecent by Paula Vogel was first produced in 2015, opened Off-Broadway in 2016 followed by a Broadway run in 2017. It’s a play within a play.

Indecent is about Polish-Jewish writer, Sholem Asch’s 1906 play, God of Vengeance.  Sholem Asch wrote the play in Yiddish when he was 21. Paula Vogel focuses on the trials and tribulations God of Vengeance had from its first reading to productions in Europe, finally a production in New York, first Off-Broadway and then on Broadway, and the scandal from a charge of obscenity brought against the cast and the producer.

Asch wanted to write a play about Jews that did not put them on a pedestal or make them all seem like heroes. He wanted to depict them as flawed but also human. 

The story of God of Vengeance was challenging to the attitudes of the times.  A pious Jewish man lives with his wife and daughter, but he runs a brothel in the basement. He needs money to buy a Torah and he gets the money from the brothel.

He forbids his daughter Rivkele from having anything to do with the brothel or the women who work there. But Rivkele is fascinated with what goes on there and in particular a prostitute named Manke. Over time Rivkele and Manke fall in love and have a passionate relationship.

As for the play within a play–playwright Paula Vogel imagines Sholem Asch’s first reading of the play at a local literary Jewish salon and the reaction is almost all negative. The participants are appalled by the lesbian story-line; or think this perpetuates antisemitic stereotypes. Asch is told to burn his manuscript by the irate participants. Only Lemml a tailor, likes the play. He says the play changed his life. Lemml then becomes the stage manager, he is so connected to the play.

What follows is that Asch does not burn his manuscript. The play (in Yiddish) is produced all over Europe to great acclaim with Lemml being the stage manager. And then they take the play, in Yiddish, to New York, first Off-Broadway, then in an English translation to Broadway where the problems began.

The Production. Kelly Thornton has directed the production with sensitivity, care and detail.  The production of Indecent is simply designed by Scott Penner, with a few chairs and some tables across the stage.

The cast of 10–seven actors and three musicians—stand across the stage dressed in heavy coats, dig their hands in their pockets and then on cue, take the hands out of the pockets and drop sand/ash onto the floor. The cast sway slightly in unison as the sand/ash drops from their hands. It is such a subtle, elegant bit of business.   

The sand/ash could be representative of so many things for the audience, but the main reference line is ”from ashes they rise.” A beautiful metaphor for the resilience of the Jewish people through the first half of the 20^th century.

Projections help clarify and simplify the story.  Projections in English translate Yiddish lyrics to songs sung in the show.

When characters are performing in the play, God of Vengeance, the acting style is broad and over expressed, as might have been the style in 1906 etc. When characters are not performing in God of Vengeance, but are characters in Paula Vogel’s play, Indecent,  the acting is detailed, layered, subtle and nuanced. I love how director Kelly Thornton made that distinction of acting styles between God of Vengeance and Indecent which is referencing it. Also impressive is how Kelly Thornton’s melding of the three wonderful musicians and cast of actors in her staging, so that musician and actor are woven together, each serving the other. The music enhances the dialogue and the dialogue follows naturally from the music.

The Jewish New York producer for God of Vengeance was afraid of reactions to some scenes, specifically the scene when Rivkele (Katherine Matlashewski) and Manke (Amy Lee) are joyfully, lovingly dancing in the rain. The scene was cut because of its sexual nature. This outraged the two actresses who were playing those characters. Both Katherine Matlashewski as Rivkele and Amy Lee as Manke bring so much variation to their roles. Katherine Matlashewski as Rivkele is pious to her father but curious and shy to the women in the basement. But Rivkele is smitten by Manke, and here Katherine Matlashewski becomes bolder, yielding to the more sexually experienced and alluring Manke, beautifully played by Amy Lee.

The police arrested the cast and producer anyway on the charge of obscenity because of the play’s content. They were found guilty and the play closed. Sholem Asch (Josh Bellan) was asked to testify on behalf of his play and cast but refused. He had been to Europe and saw the results of pogroms and that sent him into a deep depression and he could not rouse himself to defend his cast and play. Perhaps most important, is that Sholem Asch was embarrassed by his lack of fluency in English. His abilities were halting at best.

As Sholem Asch, Josh Bellan was buoyant when showing his play God of Vengeance to his wife. He was also confident in his resolve to keep the faith about the play, and not to put Jews on a pedestal. He stared down the men who first heard the play who wanted him to forget the play. Later, Josh Bellan as Sholem Asch, was bent by the weight of the mean world he was living in. Explaining why he did not defend the cast because of his halting English, was heartbreaking.

As Lemml, Alex Poch-Goldin, was a simple tailor who discovered the joys of theatre when he heard God of Vengeance being read. When Alex Poch-Goldin as Lemml says his life was changed by that play, the declaration was earnest and compelling. The joy and exuberance of Alex Poch-Goldin as Lemml pulsed all through the performance. And when Lemml announced he was going home to Poland because he was sick of having people in America make fun of his accent, it was full of disappointment and was heartfelt.   

The cast is a cohesive, strong unit. Individually each actor is committed, nuanced, full of fierce conviction and brought the emotion of this bracing play to every second of the production.

Comment. Indecent certainly brings up all manner of questions regarding anti-semitism. I love the play and the ‘landmines’ all through it. These are tricky times, with the obvious rise of anti-semitism. Paula Vogel certainly addresses that when she has a character challenge Sholem Asch when he says he does not want to put the Jewish people on a pedestal and depict them as heroes. The character says that anti-semites will have another reason to pillory the Jews because of the play. Vogel makes one look cold-eyed at such a suggestion. How does one stare down anti-semitism? Does one try not to make waves, as Sholem Asch was told not to do?

Does one stir the waters as Sholem Asch did in God of Vengeance in which he wrote about a Jew as a brothel owner, lesbianism and love in many guises? How can anyone even begin to analyze and consider racism in any form? I love that Paula Vogel gets us to think about these thorny, challenging, difficult questions. At its heart, Indecent is a bracing, thoughtful multi-layered play so worth our attention.

(In a further note, on the world coming full circle. American actor, Morris Carnovsky was in the New York production of God of Vengeance playing a rabbi. Carnovsky would also be one of the founding actors of the Group Theatre, a hugely influential acting company in New York. In his later life Morris Carnovsky gave master classes in acting in Connecticut. One young actor who took classes with Carnovsky was Alex Poch-Goldin, who is now playing in Indecent, which references God of Vengeance.)

Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre

Playing until March 8, 2025.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)

www.rmtc.ca