CULTURE Theater STORY Loren King Adina Verson and Katrina Lenk in “Indecent.” PHOTO Carol Rosegg
Life after Broadway Paula Vogel’s ‘Indecent’ comes to Boston in full Broadway form Paula Vogel’s Tony Award winner “Indecent” is a true story set in 1923 up through the early rumblings of World War II in Europe. But its themes of homophobia, censorship, anti-Semitism and the transformation power of art are as immediate as today’s images of a MAGA rally. For the Pulitzer Prize-winning, out and outspoken playwright Vogel, “History plays are always about the present moment. History is one way to open a conversation; music and comedy are another way…we’re so polarized that if you write a contemporary play about any of these issues, you are preaching to the converted to look the present moment in the eye.
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With ‘Indecent,’ we used everything in our theatrical truck of tricks to make it a theatrical journey we do want to go on.” Vogel constructed “Indecent” as a play-within-a-play, with music, about Sholem Asch’s 1906 Yiddish drama “God of Vengeance.” In its English-language debut on Broadway in 1923, the show was shut down for controversial story lines including a lesbian romance and the mostly Jewish actors tried for indecency. The US government by 1923 had enacted laws restricting immigration and many of the actors returned to Europe as it was falling into fascism. But they continued to champion and stage the play.
“The convergence of issues that occurred in 1922 and 1923 are occurring now,” say Vogel, a longtime resident of Wellfleet. “Censorship happens in an atmosphere when the oxygen is replaced by hate. There have been productions of ‘Indecent’ where cast members have gone onto the stage during crises like the [Pittsburgh] synagogue shooting to say the line, ‘It can’t happen here’ in front of an audience.” “Indecent” marked Vogel’s long-awaited Broadway debut in 2017 after some 22 plays, including her 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner “How I Learned to Drive.” “Indecent” won two Tony Awards, for director Rebecca Taichman and lighting designer Christopher Akerlind. It closed later that summer, but continues to be produced around the US and the world, from Omaha, Nebraska, and Boise, Idaho, to South Korea, Israel and Prague. “Indecent” will have its Boston premiere in a fully remounted Broadway production, featuring Taichman’s direction; Akerlind’s lighting design; David Dorfman’s choreography; music by Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva; set design by Riccardo Hernandez; and costumes by Emily Rebholz; as well as many members of the original Broadway cast. Performances began April 26 and run through May 25. Vogel hasn’t seen the show in its Broadway incarnation since “Indecent” closed in August, 2017. “This will be a return to home. We were asked by Huntington to bring back and recreate the production we put together; with the same cast, musicians, choreographer…for more than three years,” she says, as Indecent traveled the long road to Broadway from workshops to critically acclaimed runs at The Vineyard Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse. “The Huntington is near and dear to my heart,” says Vogel, whose play “A Civil War Christmas” was staged by the Huntington in 2009. “[Artistic Director] Peter DuBois and I worked together when he was a grad student; I have family in Boston; I live in Wellfleet and have an apartment in Providence so I’ll be there to see it with so many of my friends.”