Photo by Meredith Longo

didn’t know I’d be a playwright. I went into college having no clue who I was. I tried to squeeze into boxes I was too big for and fill up boxes I was too small for. I searched for home on every peak of the Vermont mountains. I didn’t find it until I stumbled into the classroom of playwright Sherry Kramer in search of credits for my major. I came alive in that room. I can only hope to someday experience the high tension of having a reading like Asch has in Mr. Peretz’s salon. As I read that scene, every muscle in my body tenses as I put myself in Asch’s place. He begs for the men to understand him, for them to see the girls in the rain as if they lived and breathed. Relief washes over me when Lemml sees what Ash sees and instantly falls in love. That is what playwrights live for. Someday I will be someone’s playwright, their soldier, their suffragette. 

Another moment that catches in my throat is when the troop sings “What Can You Mach? - S'is America”, a song about Jewish immigrants being forced to blend in with the goys. They shave their beards and stop wearing religious garments. Yiddish names get Americanized. Polish Actors are forced to shove English in their mouths to perform the English translation of God of Vengeance. Their identities are stolen. In 2016 my Grandfather told me that he didn’t want anyone to know that he is Jewish. He wears his heritage on his face, so I feared for him. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw shadows of my Russian-Jewish bloodline. I never imagined myself fleeing from a pogrom until then. 

Indecent could not have been written at a better moment in history. What strikes you as you move through the timeline of the early to mid-20th century is that life was normal. People threw parties and had dinner with their families as rumblings of a new political party in Germany made their way around town. People went to Broadway shows and concerts and cabarets as stars were pinned to jackets. My mother, Grandmother, and I were out to lunch when the restaurant’s TV aired news coverage of a mass shooting at a Newtown school. I was sitting in the box office on a Saturday morning, processing a ticket order when a text from a friend chimed on my cell phone, asking if I had heard the news about Roe V. Wade. It was a regular day when we at Playhouse on Park heard about the injustice of the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts canceling their students' production of Indecent. The utter irony in that. And yet, I live. I watch movies. I go to the mall on my breaks. My life goes on as atrocities happen and all I can do is write.

Above all, what makes me fall at the feet of this text, is hope. Artists are tenacious. Artists are furious. Artists make noise. We will perform in attics, on our computers, and in the streets. I am in awe of those who are brave enough to share their truth with the world. Artists like Paula Vogel, all the incredible cast and crew of our production of Indecent, Madeline Scotti, and so many more who present their words to this hateful country with dignity and honesty. I am honored to stand with them. Through our art we protest bigotry, brutality, inequity, and stupidity. Sholem Asch’s legacy will never leave. With the ghosts of our ancestors behind us, from ashes, we rise.

(WARNING: Mild spoilers….but Indecent is a true story so maybe you already know what happens.)

It’s rare that a piece of literature builds a home in my heart. I can’t map out the exact formula, I can’t predict the perfect time. Some stories just belong in my veins. Indecent is one of them. At the top of the play, there is a projection that reads “The true story of a little Jewish play.” This forces us to look at the story through the eyes of the doubters. Those who censored and looked down at the theatre makers who changed the world. There is nothing little about the impact of God of Vengeance, Sholem Asch, or Paula Vogel.