Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Talya Zax December 27, 2016
In May I left a preview for “Indecent” at Manhattan’s Vineyard Theater uncharacteristically silent. The play was advertised as a tale about Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” a Yiddish play that famously closed after one night on Broadway, with its entire cast arrested on charges of obscenity. “Indecent,” co-created by playwright Paula Vogel and director Rebecca Taichman, stayed true to its billing, but its conceit served only as the base for what became a transcendent elegy to Eastern European Jewish life and culture. It was a puzzle pieced together with astonishing care and — despite its often painful subject matter — a rare, almost ecstatic grace.
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