The recommended audience for this production is ages 15 and up because of its mature themes.
Written by Pulitzer-winning playwright Paula Vogel, “Indecent” first came to Broadway in 2017 and tells the story of Jewish novelist Sholem Asch’s play, “The God of Vengeance,” over the years from 1905 to 1952. The “God of Vengeance” production on Broadway in 1923 caused the arrest and conviction of the play’s entire cast and producer on obscenity charges, with Asch also later running afoul of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
“The God of Vengeance” tells the story of an Orthodox Jew, Yankl, who operates a brothel below the apartment in which his family resides. Eventually, love blooms between Yankl’s teenage daughter, Rifkele, and a woman who works in the brothel.
“It’s a play within a play,” Director Gabrielle L. Kurlander said. “[‘Indecent’ is] about the theatre troupe, it’s about the first time two women kiss on stage in an American play. But it’s also about censorship, it’s about assimilation. What happens when an immigrant community is forced to flee to another country and learn another language? Then, at a more universal level, this is a play about intolerance.”
Kurlander later added that her own Jewish heritage makes the themes and history of the play very familiar to her. “Indecent” gives expression to differences within the Jewish community and raises questions of whether there is such a thing as “proper” subject matter for drama.
“Some people feel we should see the whole scope of human behavior on the stage and other people want to have a more maybe positive and upstanding look,” Kurlander said. “That’s something I’ve experienced in my life as well, because I lean to the side of we should show the whole range of human experience on the stage. As a Jewish person, there are many things [within “Indecent”] that resonate for me.”
The seven actors in the play will perform a total of 34 different roles, as well as seven songs performed in English and in Yiddish to the accompaniment of a clarinet, violin and accordion.
“There’s some famous Yiddish songs in it, like … ‘Wiegala,’ which is a very tragic story,” Kurlander said. “It’s said that it’s a lullaby that this Jewish woman who was a nurse, she was taking care of children and she sang it when they were on their way to the gas chambers. But also there’s ‘Ain’t We Got Fun,’ so there are a couple standards in it. The songs are very spirited and then there’s a lot of music, the musicians play kind of throughout, they almost underscore the whole piece. So it’s a very musical piece, and the musicians will be on stage.”
“This show is incredibly timely and fits right within our mission, which is to produce thought-provoking theatre that explores timely issues and engages our common humanity,” producer Camilla Ross said. “For example, its themes of censorship and anti-Semitism can be seen across today’s news, where school systems and even libraries are banning books like ‘Catcher in the Rye,’ ‘Fahrenheit 451’ or ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ all of which have been taught in both junior and high school curriculums for over fifty years. According to the Anti-Defamation League, incidents of anti-Semitism rose [36%] in 2022 alone.”
Later this month, the Arts Academy of Sedona will also present “70 Scenes of Halloween” on Friday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m. and on Saturday, Oct. 28, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at The Hub at 525 Posse Ground Road.
