After all, the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1922 was awarded to Eugene O’Neill for Anna Christie, whose title character is a young woman practicing the world’s oldest profession. The brothel setting, as well as the characters who were involved in the sex trade, might have pushed the limits of what Broadway audiences could accept, but it was not that far out of bounds. So, what provoked the New York vice squad to appear at the theater and determine that the performance had broken the law? On the surface, the play’s subject was racy for its time - a Jewish brothel owner who, hoping to make up for his sinful life, wishes to marry his daughter to a young rabbinical scholar, a bargain he hopes to seal with God by having a scribe create an elaborate new Torah scroll.
It also seems to me the kind of play JTGR’s founders of 35 years ago would have hoped to bring before west Michigan audiences. Combing elements of music, drama and dance, Indecent may be Jewish Theatre’s most ambitious -and anticipated - production. The performances this month by Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids are not to be missed, as Indecent is the kind of drama that proves how essential it is to be among others when watching such art unfold. This act of censorship in 1923 is at the heart of Paula Vogel’s 2017 play Indecent, an amazing meditation not only on Asch and the fate of his work, but on the power of theater, the glory that once was Yiddish language and culture, and the capacity for love even amidst the most degrading and difficult circumstances. But the move uptown put a bright target on Asch’s three-act drama. Originally written in Yiddish and staged to great acclaim across Europe, the translated play had been successfully offered to the Greenwich Village crowd at the Provincetown Theatre. Until that last sentence you probably anticipated a reflection on what is today often termed our “cancel culture.” In fact, the scenario I posed transpired exactly 100 years ago, when the cast and producer of Sholem Asch’s The God of Vengeance were arrested after a Broadway performance on the night of March 6, 1923. Sometimes the actors are even hauled off to jail. And outrage sometimes leads to canceling, not just of performances, but of sponsors and artistic creators.
A play can attract enthusiastic audiences but still be condemned for how it depicts same-sex relations, say, or allegedly harms a marginalized group. Popularity is no guarantee against censure. Yale Repertory Production 2015 Paula Vogel’s 2017 play Indecent to be performed by Jewish Theatre Grand Rapids.
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