Photo courtesy of Oakley Marton ‘25
Playhouse on Park revives the queer, Jewish resistance spirit of “Indecent”, despite its century-long history of being censored in the United States.
By Oakley Marton ’25
Contributing Writer
Content warning: This article discusses antisemitism and homophobia and mentions the Holocaust.
On March 6, 1923, after 16 years of popularity, translations and performances in a dozen languages across Europe, the Yiddish play “God of Vengeance,” which features a romantic relationship and kiss between two women, was censored for obscenity in New York City by the city vice squad. The play’s run was cut short and the entire cast, producer and one theater owner were convicted on charges of obscenity.
This January, a group of high schoolers from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, rehearsed for their production of “Indecent,” a play based on “God of Vengeance” that tells the story of its production and censorship. The students intended to open their production on March 6, which marked the 100th anniversary of the censorship of the original play. However, they were informed by Florida school district officials that they would not be permitted to perform. “‘Indecent’ contains adult sexual dialog that is inappropriate for student cast members and student audiences,” the district announced amid the community’s anger and questions regarding if this decision reflected how far Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill would stretch. “It’s that simple. The decision has no relevance to any legislation but is rather a function of our responsibilities to ensure students engage in educational activities appropriate for their age.” The school performed the musical Chicago last year with seemingly no issues. Despite this sustained history of censorship, one theater just under an hour away from Mount Holyoke College, Playhouse on Park in West Hartford, is tackling the play.
“Indecent” is deeply moving, at times funny and self-referential; smart, angry, a generational and an igniting experience to watch. Following the performance, many in the audience stayed afterward for a talk-back, and the number of raised hands for questions vastly outnumbered the allotted 30 minutes.
““After the play, I went up to [Helen Laser and Kristen Peacock] who played the lesbians to tell them that, as a Jewish lesbian myself, I really appreciated their performance and they got super excited,” ”
The play’s inspiration, “God of Vengeance,” has been a touchstone of inspiration, representation and visibility for Jewish lesbians. Though the cast was convicted on obscenity charges shortly after its U.S. premiere, “God of Vengeance” became the first lesbian kiss on Broadway. “Indecent’s” playwright Paula Vogel read the original play in graduate school: “One of my thesis advisors came to me and said, ‘I think you should read ‘God of Vengeance,’” she recalled in an interview with the Museum of the City of New York, “which was his code word for saying, ‘I know you’re a lesbian Jew.’”
“Indecent” spans across nearly 50 years, beginning with “God of Vengeance”’s playwright Sholem Asch attempting to table read the play with the most well-known writers in the Yiddish arts scene at the time. This includes a fictionalized version of I.L. Peretz, who in reality was considered by many to be one of the three greatest classic Yiddish writers. This is a contentious scene in the play, with the writers refusing to read a script involving a lesbian relationship and sex work. It is based on a real meeting, where after reading the script, Peretz told Asch, “Burn it, Asch, burn it!"
“Indecent” focuses not only on “God of Vengeance’s” actual censorship but addresses concerns within the Jewish community that “God of Vengeance’s” representation of taboo subjects, like sex work and lesbian relationships, would aid the rapidly compounding antisemitism during the early 20th century.
The play includes many scenes of debates between Jewish characters on how to live and create freely as a Jewish artist and how impossible it seems to have trust in your audience to interpret your work in good faith when Jewish people are under threat.
As modern viewers, it’s difficult to escape the knowledge that the Holocaust is looming in the play’s future. There are scenes with the real-life rabbi, Joseph Silverman, who speaks about what he perceived as the threat of “God of Vengeance” to Jewish people during an especially antisemitic time. It was later revealed that he was the one who called the New York City vice squad to arrest the cast of “God of Vengeance.”
In “Indecent,” Asch, the writer of “God of Vengeance” rails against criticism from other Jewish writers and their insistence on prioritizing sanitized, conforming Jewish representation, which they deem as “what is good for the Jews” — a phrase often repeated in the play and it seems, in real life. In reality, it seems that Asch felt similarly. “A ‘Jewish play’ is a play where Jews are specially characterized for the benefit of the Gentiles,” Asch wrote in an open letter after the Broadway production was shut down. “I write, and incidentally my types are Jewish, for of all peoples, they are the ones I know best. The ‘God of Vengeance’ is not a milieu play — it is a play with an idea.”
While looming forces of censorship and antisemitism are constant themes in “Indecent,” the heart of the play is the web of Jewish and Yiddish artists across time who keep making and remaking this story as an act of rebellion. With the censorship of “Indecent” in Florida, that same message of solidarity and community has again joined forces. Since Madeline Scotti, a member of the Jacksonville production of “Indecent” spoke out about the district’s censorship of the play on Instagram, the issue has gained national attention, including support from Vogel. When talking with the actors, Familiant also found out that Scotti also came to West Hartford to see “Indecent” and meet the cast.“The support from the Broadway theater community feels like we have found our own mishpoche,” Scotti posted on Instagram, using the Yiddish word for “family.”
The Yiddish theater and art community is a hidden gem of the Connecticut River Valley, from West Hartford to Amherst and beyond, and functions as a family in a way itself. In the Playhouse on Park’s lobby, where “Indecent” is showing, there is an information display on Yiddish theater connections in West Hartford curated by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. To the side, there are pamphlets for the National Yiddish Book Center and their new exhibit, “EVERY PROTECTION: Exploring Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Jewish Pale of Settlement.” The Yiddish Book Center sits on the Hampshire College campus, a 15-minute bus ride from Mount Holyoke.
Dr. Mindl Cohen, the academic director of the YBC, was invited to teach a class called “The Gender of Yiddish” last semester at Mount Holyoke and spoke at last week’s annual Latke Hamantaschen debate, a Jewish Student Union tradition. In her presentation, she introduced students to the Yiddish concept of “the golden chain, de goldene keyt, which is the chain of cultural continuity, connecting us to generations of our ancestors, their experiences.” “God of Vengeance” and “Indecent,” in their many variations across time, are acts of de goldene keyt. Each production, writer, actor and activist involved has forged new links on a chain that spans across time and location, tying together a history of queer, Jewish and Yiddish communities bonding together in direct resistance to fascism and censorship.