You go to the theatre for a little relief, to be a community of people who laugh together. Or perhaps in this case, clutch their hands to their hearts and cry together. God of Vengeance, a real play by Sholem Asch, written in 1906, was surrounded by controversy, and on March 8th 1923, the Broadway production was cut short when the entire cast, producer, and one of the theatre owners were arrested and indicted (and later convicted) on charges of obscenity…of indecency. Paula Vogel (a DC native) took this historical incident and made her Broadway debut with the play Indecent, which puts a tragically beautiful and hauntingly memorable spin on the lifespan and existence of that play. Appearing in the black box space of New Spire Arts in historic downtown Frederick, as an Endangered Species Theatre Project production, Paula Vogel’s Indecent, as directed by Christine Mosere, is an evocative, albeit harrowing, theatrical experience that is frighteningly prescient in its timing as our nation currently slogs through unprecedented political turmoil.
With a simple setting, designed by director Christine Mosere, the play is cobbled together not unlike a production of Pippin, which is perfect for the way Paula Vogel has constructed this work. It’s an ensemble of players— seven actors and three stage musicians, with the accordionist (Spiff Wiegand) often joining in the merriment and festivities on stage— who tell the story by reliving it as if they were the troupe of performers. The slight hiccup that keeps this play from being perfection in motion is some of the clunkier scenic transitions. While there are live musicians (the aforementioned Spiff Wiegand on accordion and ukulele, along with Maureen Farrington on clarinet and bass clarinet, and Cindy Zhang on violin and mandolin), there are a few moments where furniture is being banged about as its shuffled on and off, a momentary pause here or there were something comes in a shade too early or a second too late; ultimately little pacing flaws that may tighten over the run of the performance. The show’s lighting design (Matthew Johnson and Stephen Craig) is also curious. While the projections on the back-scrim feature English and Yiddish subtitles (which is useful as the play is delivered predominantly in English, though with different vocal affectations to show the audience when they are speaking in English verses Yiddish) there are moment of color-wash from above that seem to come from nowhere. While blues are expected during moodier and dysthymic moments, there are also bursts of orange that don’t quite seem to align with what’s happening or what just happened on stage. There’s also some blinking rainbow flares that happen during more musically spirited moments of the show— again not jarring choices that rip you out of the show entirely but something that makes you tilt your head to the side and say ‘hmm.’
The music itself, guided by Musical Director Marci Shegogue, is quite upbeat, often in celebratory Klezmer style, except for when its more somber and subdued and emotionally informative. The aforementioned musicians are stellar— in particularly Spiff Wiegand, who is up on his feet frequently throughout the performance, playing while dancing on the stage. Choreographer Rikki Howie Lacewell infuses a link-arm kick-line at one point to one of the numbers, a nice tasteful nod to musical theatre of the grander Broadway era, and there is a lot of celebratory movements laced into a few of the other musical numbers as well that keep the players on their feet. Indecent falls into the category of ‘a play with music’ because while there is singing (with the exception of the one number about a third way into the show as the play runs without an intermission) it doesn’t just sporadically pop out of nowhere as non-musical-theatre-folk readily claim songs do in all musicals. And the Creative Team of Shegogue, Lacewell, and Mosere have a good handle on keeping the music balanced in the background of the show’s narrative, an augmenting component rather than an overbearing feature of Paula Vogel’s work.
Dialect Coach Zach Campion and Intimacy Director Julie Herber deserve nods of praise for their respective works; Campion does a superb job of giving vocal accent and affectation advice and guidelines for the scenes that are spoken ‘in Yiddish’ verses ‘in English’ (for the majority of this distinguishment, the ‘in English’ words are delivered with heavily accented words featuring a Yiddish accent and done with a slower cadence while the ‘in Yiddish’ words are delivered with expedient haste with modern American-neutral accents. And then there are a few moments where actual Yiddish is spoken too.) Herber creates realistic moments of intimacy on stage between multiple sets of characters, though primarily between Gillian Shelly’s character(s) and Maureen O’Neal’s character(s), who are most often portraying the lovers Manke and Rifkele, respectively, the featured prostitute and young virginal girl in God of Vengeance.
As the show’s director, Mosere keeps a firm handle on the play-within-a-play moments. It could be said that nearly half of Vogel’s Indecent is ‘play-within-a-play’ and there are moments of great cyclical repetition, which are perceived, at least early on in the production, as humorous by the audience. When the infamous ‘rain scene’ is finally revealed to the audience, it’s so harrowing and loaded with forebodingly ominous overtones that one almost fears enjoying and embracing it with the purity that it’s meant to possess. Mosere lets the players run wild, in a sense, with their feelings, their expressions, and their ultimate talents and capabilities when it comes to sharing the narrative of this story, which hits home in a frightening fashion at the moment as history in this nation seems to be on a repetitive trajectory. Will plays that are deemed ‘amoral’ or ‘indecent’ or ‘obscene’ be banned from our stages or have our players arrested? An anxious and legitimate concern, all things considered in present day. And that sweeping overtone of the work is not lost on the audience.
The ensemble— led by Eric O’Neal as Lemml or the Stage Manager as he is first introduced— features seven players: O’Neal, as well as Marueen O’Neal, Gillian Shelly, Dan Jacoby, Ari Jacobson, David Gamble, and Greta Boeringer. This band of seven works well together as ‘the troupe’ falling into their respectively designated roles as the story of the story (play-within-a-play) unwinds and unfolds; each bringing their own sense of purpose and their own quirks to the experience. Gamble and Boeringer, who are introduced as those who will be playing all the mamas and papas and the ‘elder figures’ are as compelling in their moments as Dan Jacoby, who at the tail-end of the performance is trying so desperately to learn whatever language will keep him alive.
Eric O’Neal, playing both ‘Stage Manager’ and Lemml-in-action, gives a versatile performance every step of the journey and you find yourself as invested in Lemml’s experience as you do the sum-total of the show. When Mr. & Mrs. Asch shout at him, pleading for him not to leave it’s a harrowing gut-punch; you feel both O’Neal’s determination to go his own way, find his own freedom, but inevitably are desperate to save him from a harrowing foregone conclusion; it’s quite striking. Ari Jacobson, as Sholem Asch is a riveting performer (who doubles up as Eugene O’Neill in one scene and it’s enthralling to watch the actor switch vernacular, patois, cadence, and accent on a slick dime the way that he does) who puts a black hole of emotional gravity into the back-half of the production, especially in that moment where he confesses he cannot read English; it’s striking.
A great deal of the versatile performances in this production falls on the shoulders of Gillian Shelly and Maureen O’Neal, who play the two lovers from within God of Vengeance, as well as the actresses who play them, and the real-life wives of Asch and Dorthee. The chemistry and connectivity between Shelly and O’Neal is authentically pure and convivially natural. Even when they are not Manke and Rivkele you feel this sense of intrinsic bondedness between them, percolating like a simmering cauldron waiting to explode into those moments when they do become Manke and Rivkele. They steal the show in their own right— everything from that giddily simplistic ‘spinning’ that they do together at the very beginning of the play and at the very end for the ‘rain scene’ to the way they catch one another’s eye when they’re just crossing the stage as other characters. There’s something liberating about watching O’Neal and Shelly play in their roles; it invigorates the soul the way theatre is designed to do.
Paul Vogel is no stranger to darkness, though the play itself is not without its humors, moments of joy and levity, and ultimately a lesson to be learned. There is an eeriness that this play would make its way to the stage at this moment in time when the nation at large is staring down the barrel of repeating history, particularly when ‘morality’ ‘faith’ and ‘decency’ are being called to the forefront of the questioning. The performance schedule for Indecent is sporadically limited due to the holiday timing of Thanksgiving but don’t miss your chance to see an excellently performed, evocative, and prescient piece of theatrical genius happening in Frederick this season.
Running Time: Approximately 105 minutes with no intermission
Indecent plays select performances through December 11th 2024 with Endangered Species Theatre Project in the black box theatre of New Spire Arts— 15 W. Patrick Street in the heart of downtown historic Frederick, MD. Tickets are available at the door or in advance online.
