The Tony-nominated playIndecent, by Paula Vogel, comes vividly to life in Milwaukee’s perfect space for it: the Cabot Theater, a glorious recreation of Europe’s old-style “jewel box” theaters, created by a local philanthropist for Skylight Music Theater and Milwaukee Chamber Theater. It is the latter troupe that is offering a spine-tingling and gorgeously presented version of this play, and it is a not-to-be-missed addition to the spring theatrical season.
Under the surefire direction of Chamber Artistic Director Brent Hazelton, a dream cast whisks the audience away to a different time and place. Indecent begins in 1907, when a young, Jewish, short story writer, Sholem Asch, writes a controversial play in his Poland hometown. The play, God of Vengeance, features a love scene between two women. Of course, the play is about much more than this love match. But the potent scene between two young women, who declare their feelings one night while they play together in the rain, is the one that audiences remember most. It’s also the scene that caused “Vengeance” to be closed down by police (on obscenity charges) when it debuted on Broadway in the 1920s.
Vogel first heard of God of Vengeance and its odd history while studying theater at Cornell University. She later teamed up with co-creator Rebecca Taichman, who wrote about the play for her Yale dissertation.
It would take a dissertation-long review to comment on all the themes and subtext that permeate Indecent. However, it’s safe to say that audiences will never forget the experience of seeing Indecent. Every aspect of the play is perfectly “tuned” to be in synch with each other, from the actors to the set to the lighting to the sound to the musicians.
An onstage, three-piece klezmer band is never far from the action, regardless of where a scene takes place. In fact, the opening moments of Indecent seem to borrow a few notes from the opening of another, more well-known Jewish show, Fiddler on the Roof. How can one forget the musical’s lone fiddler who plays such a soulful tune?
Also like Fiddler, Indecent has a narrator. In this case it’s the accomplished Wisconsin actor James Ridge. In Indecent, Ridge plays Lemml, the Stage Manager. Lemml is one of the few characters whose journey is chronicled throughout the performance. Of all the characters, he’s perhaps the one who makes the greatest changes, whether physically, emotionally, geographically or culturally.
Lemml is a self-described “country bumpkin” who accompanies his urban relative to a play reading. Lemml admits that it will be the first time he has encountered a play. Sholem Asch (Josh Krause, who is incandescent in his best role so far) nervously hands out copies of his play and guides the readers through it.
Afterwards, some of the more “learned” members of the literary circle find little to admire in God of Vengeance. Lemml, however, is transported by it. He calls it a “masterpiece.” Some of the others have strong objections to the material, saying it will further flame anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, Asch gains courage from Lemml’s reaction and vows to produce the play.
Productions of God of Vengeance are successfully mounted all over Europe, even as murmurs of a simmering Nazi dissatisfaction can be sensed in the background. Even years later, when Jews are corralled into the Warsaw ghetto and Hitler seems to have the upper hand, Lemml stages truncated versions of God of Vengeance in attics and basements. These theatrics, held after dark, are intended to help the Jewish residents cope with the otherwise horrendous conditions.
In this play-within-a-play, some scenes from God of Vengeance, are replayed over and over. Yet Indecent maintains its chronological timeline. It takes the audience from 1906 through World War II and into the 1950s. Nearly a dozen actors morph seamlessly into numerous characters throughout the play, and these transitions are aided tremendously by Madelyn Yee’s set, a warehouse full of period costumes by Kim Instenes, Noele Stollmack’s dramatic lighting effects, choreography by Dani Kuepper and music direction by Christie Chiles Twillie.
Milwaukee Chamber Theater originally intended to stage Indecent in 2020, but those plans were delayed due to the pandemic. If anything, the play seems even more relevant now than it would have been during pre-pandemic days.
Indecent’s cast marks a wealth of Wisconsin-based talent, mostly from actors who have played on many stages during their long careers. The two actors who fall in love in Vengeance are represented by noted actors Rachael Zientek and Elyse Edelman. Zientek, the younger of the two, also steps in as Sholem Asch’s wife. Although their final scene is one of the play’s strongest, they compel the audience’s attention throughout.
Indecent occasionally steps away from the action to provide interludes that set the play into its historical perspective. Zientek and Edelman sing a lovely version of 1937’s “(My) Dear Mr. Shane (Bei Mir Bist Du Schein,” a Yiddish song that was instantly made famous when released by the American-based Andrews Sisters. The mixed-language song is an ideal choice for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the evolution of the characters as they flee Europe and reunite in the U.S. Other actors also blend well, and Milwaukee favorites James Pickering and Angela Iannone deserve a shout-out for representing a variety of “older” characters, just as Josh Krause and Rachael Zientek are assigned to all of the “younger” parts.
The actors speak a mix of Polish, German, Yiddish and English – first “broken English,” and then more confident English, as the years go by. Most of the “foreign language” sequences are accompanied by supertitles with English translations that appear above the stage.
Watching Indecent may sound like a complicated experience, and in some ways it is. But make no mistake; the talented cast confidently guides audiences through each step of the process. And although the Holocaust is almost a character itself in Indecent, there’s also plenty of joy and optimism to savor. For instance, one discovers how relationships between family members, friends and countrymen can keep people from falling apart. There’s an admirable resiliency in these characters, even if some of them feel they are not welcome anywhere in the world – not in Hitler’s Europe, and not even in America, supposedly the “home of the free.”
