BooKs BY PAULA VoGEL INDECENT

AVAILABLE FROM TCG

The Baltimore Waltz and Other Plays

INCLUDES:

The Baltimore Waltz

And Baby Makes Seven
Desdemona A PLAY BY
Hot 'N' Throbbing
The Oldest Profession PAULA VOGEL
A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration

How I Learned to Drive

Indecent

The Long Christmas Ride Home

The Mammary Plays

INCLUDES:

How I Learned to Drive

The Mineola Twins

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP

NEW YORK
2017
 Indecent is copyright© 2017 by Paula Vogel

Indecent is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc,,

520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018Al56

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine,
radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or
recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permis-
sion in writing from the publisher.
Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being PREFACE
fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of Amer-
ica and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conven-
tions, is subject to a royalty. All rights, including but not limited to, pro-
fessional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, pub-
lic reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation
into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed
on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational insti-
tutions, permission for which must be secured from the author's repre-
sentative: Jonathan Lomma, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment,
11 Mad;son Avenue, 18th Flom, New York, NY 10010, (212) 903-1552, got the phone call sometime in 2009. Rebecca Taichman was
"Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (Means That You're Grand)": Original Lyrics by
Jacob Jacobs, Music by Sholom Secunda. English Version by Sammy Cahn
! calling from Ashland, Oregon: Would I be interested in writ-
ing a play about the infamous 1923 obscenity trial of Sholem
and Saul Chaplin. Copyright© 1937 (Renewed) WB Music Corp. and Cahn
Music Co. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of Alfred Music. "Wie- Asch's The God of Vengeance/
gala" by Ilse Weber. Copyright © 2002 by Boosey & Hawkes Bate & Bock I had read the play in the stacks at Cornell University my
GMBH, Berlin. Reprinted by Permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. first year in grad school; the love scene between two_ women
The publication of Indecent by Paula Vogel, through TCG's Book Program, written by a twenty-something-year-old newly married man
is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the stunned me. Moreover, he had written the play in 1906. It left
support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
an indelible impression on my twenty-two-year-old mind, and
Special thanks to Paula Marie Black for her generous support of this publication. I would never again make assumptions that the gender of the
TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book writer determined the empathic understanding of gender.
Sales and Distribution. And when my brother gave me, as his last gift, the book
Library of Congress Control Numbers: We Can Always Call Them Bulgarians, I read about the trial. And
2017010828 (pdnt) / 2017014472 (ebook)
promptly filed away the incident until I read abo~t a y~ung
ISBN 978-1-55936-547-5 (softcover) / ISBN 978-1-55936-868-1 (ebook)
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, director in graduate school who staged the obscemty tnal as
Book design and composition by Lisa Govan
her thesis:"The People vs. The God of Vengeance" in 200,0.
Cover design by Monet Cogbill Who is this woman/ I began to track her work. And every
Cover photograph: Adina Verson (left) and Katrina Lenk from the Vineyard play she directed was stunning.
Theatre production of Indecent. Photograph copyright© 2017 by Carol Rosegg.
I hoped I would work with her.
First Edition, November 2017

V
·.·.J

l
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', _'
 --»- PREFACE ~ ~PREFACE~

Then, the phone call. Would I be interested in writing a house (and her initial commission from Oregon Shakespeare
play about the trial, Rebecca asked. She had realized that she Festival joined my commission at Yale) could we put together a
could not work out her obsession by using found materials; she troupe to make it happen.
would need a writer. Ultimately, I discarded the obscenity trial from the play.
I had briefly dallied with writing a play about the trial of We entered into the collaboration with Rebeccas dream of me
The Well of Loneliness, and Mae West's The Drag. But perhaps it writing that play. But it didn't fit, and I couldn't make it fit.
was the inspiration to me that this brilliant woman had held on Over the next seven years of reading about Lodz, Yiddish the-
to this story, which suddenly gave me a vision. This is how, for ater, the history of the Lower East Side, theses about theater in
me, plays happen. I see an image that ends up being the turning the camps and ghettos, and listening to music and more music,
point: a woman adjusts her car mirror. A doctor takes off his I slowly carved out the play. For every scene in the play, there
latex gloves under fluorescent hospital lights, or: are scenes on the cutting room floor. For every character in the
A dusty troupe of actors hastily assemble a performance of play, there were multiple rewrites.
The God of Vengeance with improvised props and suitcases and And somehow, as I wrote, I fell in love with this world
trunks in an attic. until my obsession matched my director's. I jettisoned other
I asked the other voice on the line: "I think it's larger than projects, choosing to stay at home with my research, listening
the obscenity trial:' And Rebecca gave me an enthusiastic: "Yes, at the end of every day to a recording of "Wiegela;' and weep-
yes! You shonld make it what you want!" ing at Ilse Weber's haunting lullaby.
And from that call followed perhaps the most extended With a brilliant director, two co-composers, Aaron Halva
and intimate collaboration of my life. She unearthed a box and Lisa Gutkin, and the generous spirit of choreographer David
of materials from her thesis: the entire trial transcript, letters Dorfman, I could write a tour of Europe in a page, with four rep-
from the producer Harry Weinberger, her thesis itsel£ etitions of a scene, and hand it over to Rebecca: "What do I do
And then I read. We went to MacDowell together, and with this/" she asked.''Your problem! Have fun!" I said. And have
she typed from dictation in the cabin we shared; every day fun she did. Make a dead troupe rise from the ashes/ She came
we would stop and Rebecca would play the roles and read the up with the idea of the dust. End with a stunning rain scene/
pages. And we would discuss every page. Through three productions we tried variations until it worked.
We emerged with the first draft in two weeks. A not very She staged my intention with more life than I could ever dictate
good first drafr, but still, the block of marble I could carve to through stage directions alone. And of course, along the way, the
find the marble elephant within. same brilliant cast, composers and choreographer stayed with us,
Workshops. A week at her parents' house, Ettie and Lazer with suggestions and ideas that brought the play to life.
Taichman, where I consumed more books from her parents' There are storied collaborations in the American Theater,
shelves. A week at my house in Rhode Island, a week at the Cape. writer/ director collaborations that over years result in plays
Three weeks at Sundance Theatre Lab. A reading here, another that remain vivid on the page: Elia Kazan and Tennessee Wil-
workshop there ... Only with the generosity of multiple not- liams. Lloyd Richards and August Wilson. Marshall Mason
for-profits: Sundance, Yale Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Play- and Lanford Wilson.

J'
vi vii
 ..i;o. PREFACE ~

Rebecca Taichman and our troupe put my voice on the

stage. I can only hope that these pages inspire more rich col-
laborations in our theater.

This play is dedicated to Rebecca Taichman's immigrant ances-

tors, And mine, And all of ours,
INDECENT
Paula Vogel
Wellfleet, MA
May2017

viii '.~
I
. .
 Original Broadway Production PRODUCTION HISTORY
Conceived and Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Indecent was co-commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival
(Bill Rauch, Artistic Director; Cynthia Rider, Executive Direc-
tor) in Ashland, 0 R, as part of their American Revolutions:
The United States History Cycle, and Yale Repertory Theatre
(James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing
Director) in New Haven, CT.
Indecent received its world premiere in a co-production of
Yale Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse ( Christopher
Ashley, Artistic Director; Michael S. Rosenberg, Managing
Director) in La Jolla, CA. It opened at Yale Repertory The-
atre on October 2, 2015, and at La Jolla Playhouse on Novem-
ber 13, 2015. The production was conceived and directed by
Rebecca Taichman. The scenic design was by Riccardo Her-
nandez, the costume design was by Emily Rebholz, the lighting
design was by Christopher Akerlind, the original music was by
Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva, the sound design was by Mart
Hubbs, the projection design was by Ta! Yarden, the choreog-
raphy was by David Dorfman; the production stage manager
was Amanda Spooner. The cast was:

LBMML, THE STAGE MANAGER Richard Topol

THE ACTORS Katrina Lenk, Mimi Lieber,
Max Gordon Moore,
Tom Nelis, Steven Rattazzi,
Adina Verson
THE MUSICIANS Lisa Gutkin, Aaron Halva,
Travis W. Hendrix

Indecent had its New York premiere at Vineyard Theatre (Doug-

las Aibel and Sarah Stern, Co-Artistic Directors; Suzanne
Appel, Managing Director) on April 27, 2016. The cast and cre-
CHARACTERS
ative team remained the same as the Yale Rep/La Jolla produc-
tion, with the following changes: Mike Cohen replaced Travis
W. Hendrix as a Musician, and the production stage manager The Dead Troupe. The Troupe plays everyone.
was Terri K. Kohler.
The Troupe
THE STAGE MANAGER, LEM ML

Indecent opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on April 18,

2017. The producers were Daryl Roth, Elizabeth I. McCann, The Ingenue (Chana) The Ingenue (Avram)
Cody Lassen, Jerry Meyer, Jay Alix & Una Jackman, Elizabeth RIFKELE SHOLEM ASCH
Armstrong, Julie Boardman, CoGro Partners, Nicole Eisen- MADJE ASCH IMMIGRANT
berg, Four Star Productions, GLS Productions, The John ELSA HEIMBS MORRIS CARNOVSKY
Gore Organization, Kathleen K. Johnson, Dana M. Lerner, IMMIGRANT
1
EUGENE 0 NEILL
Jenn Maley, Mano-Horn Productions, Marc Platt, and Story- REINA/RUTH JOHN ROSEN
board Entertainment. The cast and creative team remained the VIRGINIA MCFADDEN
same as the Vineyard production, with the following changes: BAGELMAN SISTER
Matt Darriau replaced Mike Cohen as a Musician, and the
production stage manager was James Latus.
The Middle (Halina) The Middle (Mendel)
MANKE NAKHMEN

IMMIGRANT IMMIGRANT

FREIDA NIEMANN HARRY WEINBERGER

DBINE/DOROTHBB OFFICER BENJAMIN BAILIE

t;,
DR. HORNIG RABBI JOSEPH SILVERMAN

BAGELMAN SISTER
 The Elder (Vera) The Elder (Otto) LANGUAGE

SARAH YEKEL
MRS. PERETZ MR, PERETZ
When characters speak their native language, they speak per-
IMMIGRANT RUDOLPH SCHILDKRAUT
fect English (when Sholem Asch, Maclja Asch speak Yiddish,
IMMIGRANT
for example). When characters speak English as their second
ESTHER STOCKTON
BARTENDER
language, they speak in a dialect (Reine, Maclja, Esther, and
MADJE ASCH
JUDGE MCINTYRE
Asch, for example; Rudolph Schildkraut has the most intense
SCHOLEM ASCH dialect in America).

NOTE
The Musicians
MAYER BALSAM, CLARINET, ISAAC An"/ " indicates when dialogue overlaps,
NELLY FRIEDMAN, VIOLIN
MORIZ GODOWSKY, ACCORDION, LAZAR

PLACE

Warsaw, 1906, to Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1950s, and every-

where in between.

SET

A space filled with planks and suitcases. All props come &om
the suitcases.

TITLES

Scene titles and Yiddish translations are projected through-

out the production. In this publication they look like: FROM
AsHES THEY Risa or IN YIDDISH: etc.
 INDECENT: THE TRUE STORY OF
A LITTLE JEWISH PLAY

Lights up. Soft, muffled music.

Slowly, in a dim light, a body stirs onstage. The light grows; we
see a dusty figure in an old suit. He stretches limbs that haven't moved
in decades. He lifts one arm; sawdust pours from his sleeve. He lifts
the other arm; more sawdust. He shakes his legs vigorously; more out-
pouring of sawdust.

FROM ASHES THEY RISE

The troupe rises and shakes off their dust.

Lemm! steps on the platform.

LEMML INTRODUCES THE TROUPE

LEMML: Ladies and gentlemen. Our actors who play many,

many; roles tonight! First, the founding members of our

9
 ~INDECENT~
~ PAULA VOGEL ~

OTTO, MENDEL AND AVRAM:

troupe. Vera Parnicki and Otto Godowsky. They play all
of the fathers, all of the mothers, the sagest of our charac- Un mir zaynen ale brider,
oy, oy ale brider (We are all brothers
ters, or the ones who remain fools at any age.
Un mit zingen freylekhe lider,
oy oy oy, We sing happy songs.)
(The man and woman acknowledge the audience.)

VERA, HALINA AND CHANA!

And our members of the troupe who are in their prime!
Halina Cygansky and Mendel Schultz! They play all of Un mir haltn zikh in eynem,
oy oy zikh in eynem (We stick together
the vamps and all of the vice, the scarred, and the schemers.
And our ingenues! Chana Mandelbaum and Avram Azelkes iz nito bay keynem,
oy oy oy! Like nobody does!)
Zederbaum. All the brides, all the grooms, the writers, the
socialists. So ardent in their beliefs, so passionate in their
lovemaking. CAST!

On violin: Nelly Friedman! (She steps forward) Oy yoy yoy yoy de yoy ...
On clarinet: Mayer Balsam! (He does the same)
And on accordion: Moriz Godowsky. (He gives a wave) (Band solo.)
My name is Lemm!; you can also call me Lou. I'm the
stage manager tonight-usually you can find me back- Oy yoy yoy yoy de yoy ...
stage. We have a story we want to tell you ... About a
play. A play that changed my life. Every night we tell this (Members of the troupe form a bed from suitcases and planks. A
story-but somehow I can never remember the end. (He young woman gets into the bed and waits. The troupe now brings
indicates his mind is failing. He turns to the others for help. No one a young man to the bed to join his young bride. Lemml takes a
can) No matter. I can remember how it begins. It all starts script from a suitcase and puts it in the brides hands. The troupe
with this moment-remember this: gathers around the bed and watches the young woman read.)

(Lemml gestures to two women of the troupe, holding each other,

1906, WARSAW: MADJB AscH READS
and then the troupe explodes in ajoyous klezmer song and dance.)
THE GoD OF VENGEANCE IN BED wrTH SHoLBM AscH

"ALE BRIDER
11 Sholem Asch, a twenty-three-year-old playwright, waits as his wife reads
the last page of The God of Vengeance.
(The cast sings "Ale Brider:)

CAST!

Oy yoy yoy yoy de yoy , ..

10 11
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~ INDECENT -*r

ASCH: I feel like a prostitute every time I have to pander to Mr.

IN YIDDISH! Peretz to get a reading in his salon.
MADJB: This play will cause a sensation tomorrow night! All
MADJB: OH!! (Reads a little further) the writers will be green with envy.
ASCH: Oh/// ASCH: Don't bring down the evil eye! Mr. Peretz could hate it.
MADJE: Ohhh ... MADJE: Oh, Mr. Peretz is a lovely man ... but he's so nine-
ASCH: Ohhh as in it's awful/// Oh as in how do I tell him/ Oh teenth century.
as in whom did I marry/ Acchh! Warsaw is a provincial little town! This play
will be done all over the world: Moscow, Berlin, Paris-
(Madje reads. End ofplay. wait, wait!-I know who would be perfect for the father!
Madje puts the manuscript down on her breasts. She closes her Rudolph Schildkraut!
eyes. She opens her eyes. She inhales. She weeps.) ASCH:Who/
MADJE: Rudolph Schildkraut is a sensation in Berlin right now
MADJE: Ohhh! with his Merchant of Venice. I'll ask Papa for money to send
ASCH: Are you crying/ you. We must get this play to him!
MADJE: I can't breathe. ASCH: It's my first play!
Oh as in it's wonderful. It's so sad. I love it, MADJB: Our play will catch fire in Berlin! All the German
ASCH: Really/ intelligentsia can talk about right now is Dr. Freud! It's
MADJB: Really. the twentieth century! We are all attracted to both sexes.
ASCH: What did you love/ I promise I'll understand if you get attracted to a man-
MADJE: My God, Sholem. It's all in there. The roots of all evil: ASCH: -Huh.
the money, the subjugation of women, the false piety ... the MADJE: But I'll kill you if it's another woman.
terrifying violence of that father ... and then, oh Sholem, ASCH: I promise you I'll understand if you get attracted to a
the two girls in the rain scene! My God, the poetry in woman-as long as I can watch.
it-what is it about your writing that makes me hold my MADJE: My God, I am now married to a playwright! Yotire my
breath/ You make me feel the desire between these two warrior! My suffragette!
women is the purest, most chaste, most spiritual- ASCH (Hopefully): Your lesbian/
AScH: -It is! ... are you angry/ That I stole your words for MADJE:"Teach me. Take me. I want to taste you:·
the virgin daughter/
MADJE: If Papa had come downstairs and discovered his virgin (Madje dives beneath the covers.)
daughter in flagrante! ...
ASCH: I would never have made it to the huppah alive.
MADJB: It's interesting to hear your words the night you
seduced me , .. in the mouth of a prostitute,

12 13
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

ASCH: Mr. Peretz would you read Yekel/

1906: A SALON AT THE PERETZ HOME NAKHMEN (Reading the title page): You want Mr. Peretz to play
the owner of a brothel/
IN YIDDISH! ASCH: I want him to play the protagonist. He has the most lines.
PERETZ: Ahh! I will do my humble best.
ASCH: First of all I want to say what a great honor it is to have ASCH: Lazar you read Rifkele. The daughter. She's seventeen.
this opportunity ... to be-to be under Mr. Peretis roe£ She's pure. And very beautiful. Isaac, her mother, Sarah.
to be standing here in front of all of these writers whose Smart. Ambitious. An ex-prostitute.
work has been such an inspiration , ..
(The men raise their eyebrows.)
(Asch wipes the sweat from his brow; passes out the scripts. Peretz
looks at his:) Nakhmen, you read Manke the prostitute. She's in her
twenties: the beauty ofYekel's stable. Don't use your chest
PERETZ (Reading): THE GOD OF VENGEANCE! voice.
NAKHMEN: It's a one-hundred-and-thirty-page three-act play.
Whar a prodigy! Does anyone mind if Lemm! sirs in/ He's (Nakhmen takes the script. The two men blink at each other.)
my third cousin from Lodz.
LEMML: Well, a litrle shterl outside Balut actually ... I'll read stage directions. "As the curtain rises, we find our-
NAKHMEN: He's a tailor from Balut-he's never seen a play! selves in Yekel's cozy home over the basement where his
PERETZ (Eager to welcome a working man): Lemm!! Take a seat, brothel is located. There he lives with his virgin daughter
take a seat! and his wife .. ,"

(Peretz goes to shake Lemml's hand. Lemm/ nervously wipes his

hands on his jacket before he will touch Peretz.)
A BLINK IN TIME
LEM ML:Sir. It's a real honor, sir.
PERETZ: Welcome. IN THE MmsT OF AcT ONE

(Nakhmen quickly thumbs through the script.) PERETZ (As Yekel): Woman: I am not going to warn you again.
When I took you from my whorehouse I told you: keep my
NAKHMEN: Oy, Another play set in a brothel. home apart from my whores! I'd better not catch Rifkele in
PERETZ: Why are so many men writing brothel stories/ Manke's company again!
NAKHMEN (In a low voice to Peretz): Research.
(A little thrill in the room because Peretz has said the word whore-
(The men laugh.) house and whore.)

14 15
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~
~INDECENT~

Up here lives my virgin daughter, worthy of marrying the I laid bare your breasts and I washed them in the rain.
best of men. Like the kosher &om the traif! Keep the two You smell like grass in the meadows ... Do you want me
worlds apart! to .•• Rifkele, do you want us to/
ASCH! RifkeJe ...

A BLINK IN TIME (Lazar refuses to read.)

AcT Two: THE FrnsT RAIN ScENE NAKHMEN: None of us are reading this garbage!

ASCH (Reading stage directions): Manke enters, nuzzling Rifkele. (The three men toss their scripts to the floor.)
Washed in the rain, their soaked nightgowns drip water
on the floor ... PERETZ: Well, perhaps we should call it a-
NAKHMEN (As Manke): Are you shivering, Rifkele/ Warm ASCH (To Lemml): You have to read both women. Manke and
yourself-rub up against me, that feels- Rifkele. Please.
ASCH (Sotto voce to Nakhmen): Higher voice, please ... LEM ML (As Rijkele): I ... I have never done one woman, much
NAKHMBN (As Manke): Rest your face against my- less two, Mr. Asch!
ASCH: Okay. You read Rifkele. I'll be Manke. (As Manke) You
(Asch steals a glance at an impassive Peretz. Nakhmen stops.) smell like grass in the meadows .•. Do you want me to •..
Rifkele, do you want us to/
Wait. Wait. Am I still a woman here/ Saying this to LEM ML (As Rifkele): Yes. Yes. (He sees the next line; closes his eyes,
another woman/ I am not reading this garbage. takes a deep breath) Teach me. Take me. I want to taste you.
ASCH (As Manke): I can't breathe.
(He tosses the script down. Asch picks up the discarded script and
gives it to Lemm I.) (The men in the salon can't ei(her.)

ASCH: Read Manke's lines, starting with"Rest your face against

my breasts-" A BLINK IN TIME

LEMML: You want me to say the word "breasts" in this living

room? THE LAST MOMENTS OF THE PLAY
ASCH: Read, damn it!
LEMML (As Manke): Rest your face against, against my •.. PERETZ (As Yekel): Rifkele: You ran away with Manke last
breasts (Takes a breath, plunges on) Yes, oh yes •.. And night. Don't tell me where she took you. Daughter, just tell
embrace me with your body. me: Are you still a virgin/ Let me see into your eyes! Right
into your eyes!
(A small involuntary shiver from Lemm/: Ooooh. He gets stronger:) LEM ML (As Rifkele): I ... don't know.

16 17
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~
-tt- INDECEN'f ~

PERETZ (As Yekel): What do you mean-you don't know! Are ASCH: I want to write for everyone.
you still a- LEMML (To himself): Yes-
LEMML (As Rifkele): Oh, but it's all right for you to do/ I know
ASCH: -You told me we need plays in Yiddish which are
who you are and what you do! universal.
PERETZ (As Yekel): I'll tell you what you know. You know
PERETZ: Plays that represent our people as valiant, heroic-
what this Torah cost/ It cost all of the whores downstairs ASCH: -Why must every Jew onstage be a paragon/!!
on their backs and their knees for a year! And for what/ NAKHMEN: You are representing our people as prostitutes and
Look at Me! God wants me to fail as a father/ As a hus- pimps!
band/ Well there's one thing I know how to do-MAKE ASCH: Some of our people are!
MONEY. You are both paying me back! On your backs. PERETZ: You are pouring petrol on the flames of anti-Semitism.
On your knees. This is not the time.
Down into the whorehouse with you!! And take the ASCH: When! When will be the right time/
Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it anymore! PERETZ: For God's sake, Asch-write what you know, young
ASCH (Reading stage directions): Yekel hurls down the Torah.
man! How many whorehouses have you worked in/
End of play.
LEMML (Crying): This is Theater/!! Oh. Oh, Mr. Asch. It is (Mrs. Peretz carries a vial of medicine and a glass of water across
wonderful. the room to Mr. Peretz. The men stand.)
NAKHMEN: Are you crying/ Asch has desecrated the Torah!
ASCH: My character Yekel does-I do not!- Ah yes. It's time for my medicine. Thank you, my dear.
LEMML: But it's not a real Torah, right, Mr. Asch// It's a make- MRS. PERETZ (Looking icily at Asch): And did you have a nice
believe Torah- reading, Mr. Asch/
NAKHMEN: Grandmother Rochel's daughter's son: You are ASCH: Yes, ma'am.
way out of your depths here. I brought you here as a favor MRS. PERETZ: I loved your last short story: "A Shtet!:' So lyri-
to your mother. cal. There seems to be ... much excitement in the house.
LEM ML: It was a very big favor, cousin. Excitement is not the best thing for Mr. Peretz's digestion.
NAKHMEN: "Do you want me to, Rifkele, do you want us to/ ASCH: We .•. won't keep him much longer.
V'.
ies, yes ... .. MRS. PERETZ: I think I've had enough excitement mysel£
Excuse me.
(Nakhmen and the others burst into laughter.)
(She closes the door behind her.)
ASCH: How can you let Nakhmen laugh at me! ASCH: Mr. Peretz-it is because of you that we are creating a
PERETZ: We need to have a civil discourse no matter what the Yiddish renaissance-
young men in my living room do. (Beat) Or write. P ERE TZ: Come, come-Yiddish is our mother tongue. The
ASCH: My soul is in these pages!
language of our myths, our songs •..
PERETZ: Asch. Asch. Who is your audience/
ASCH: Our streets. Our gutters. Our desire.

18 19
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

LEM ML: Yes ... Schon ist es im Mai in It's beautiful during
PERETZ: At the end of every day I come home from work, kiss Rom durch die May in Rome
my wife and go into this study. And four nights of the week Stadt zu gehen. to stroll through the city.
I try to write something for the Jewish people. It may get Oder eine Sommernacht Or during a summer night
no further than this living room but it's for us. still beim Wein to quietly drink wine
ASCH: I am not happy to produce one slim volume of poetry in Wien. in Vienna.
every two or three years that gets read in your living room. Doch ich hang But I'd rather hang out
I am not ashamed because I want our stories to be on every wenn ihr auch lacht, even ifyou laugh,
stage in every language.
PERETZ: You cannot translate,,. this hateful play. If you must (The cast sings:)
throw stones, throw them outside the tent.
NAKHMEN: Oy veh iz mir. This is a play written by a Jew who CAST:
hates Jews! Heut' noch an Berlin. Today in Berlin.
ASCH: Do you know what a minyan is/ It's ten Jews in a circle
accusing each other of anti-Semitism. (Otto sings:)
PERETZ: Sholem! You will be torn limb from limb if the
public sees this play. Listen to me: about your manuscript/ OTTO:
-BURN IT. Ich hab' noch einen I still have a suitcase
ASCH: Mr. Lemm!, may I buy you a drink/ I'm taking my stones Koffer in Berlin. in Berlin.
outside the tent with me. I've always wanted to see Berlin. Deswegen muss ich That's why I have to go
niichstens wieder bin. there soon.
(We suddenly find ourselves in a Berlin cabaret, early twentieth cen- Die Seligkeiten vergangener The joys of days gone by
tury. The atmosphere is saturated with erotic tension. The troupe Zeiten
dances with their suitcases, displaying every vice to be enjoyed by a Sind alle noch in meinem Are still in my little
tourist on the prowL Even the musicians get into the act.) kleinen Koffer drin. suitcase.

(Avram and Otto sing:)

1908, BERLIN! A CABARET

u " AVRAM AND OTTO:

SUITCASE IN BERLIN
Ich hab' noch einen Koffer I still have a suitcase
Halina sings "Suitcase in Berlin": in Berlin. in Berlin.
Der bleibt auch dort, und It stays there, and
HALINA: das hat seinen Sinn. that makes sense.
Wunderschon ist's in Paris Its wonderful in Paris
auf der Rue Madeleine. on the Rue Madeleine. · ,. (Halina, Avram and Otto sing:)
.i
\.·
','J

20 21
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~ INDECENT --it-

HALINA, AVRAM AND OTTO! FREIDA: Oh, no. I like to find the role through intuition.
Auf diese Weise In this way Of course, when Rudolph came to me: "Freida, we have
a role, this young boy must have been thinking of you
(Chana sings:) when he wrote it .. ,"
And I positively peppered him with questions: How do
CHANA:
these women live/ How do they dress/ What do they do in
Lohnt sich die Reise It's worth a trip bed and how do they do it/
ELSA: You mean prostitutes?
(The cast sings:)
FREIDA: Oh good God, no! We all know what prostitutes do!
CAST: ELSA: Oh-so you asked him about ... about ... lesbians/
Denn wenn ich Sehnsucht So whenever I have a FREIDA: You'd better learn how to say the word out loud, my

hab' dann longing girl. Four weeks from today we will be kissing center stage.
Fahr' ich wieder hin. Then I can go back again. (By the way, my lefr profile is my good profile.) I mean,
I haven't read the play yet, but I assume I will be the butch,
(Violin/viola duet.) and you are the feminine little thing.
But on one thing I am completely lost at sea: How do
Auf diese Weise lohnt In this way it's worth I play a Jew/
sich die Reise a trip
Denn wenn ich Sehnsucht So whenever I have a (Elsa blinks at Freida.)
hab' dann longing
Fahr' ich wieder hin. Then I can go back again. Or is the proper word Jewess/
ELSA:Mrs. Freida, I am Jewish.
FREIDA: That is very brave of you.
1908, BERLIN: THE DEUTSCHES THEATRE
ELSA:Very, very secular, very.•.•
ELSA HEIMES AND FREIDA NIEMANN
FREIDA: I consider us, first and foremost, German.

IN GERMAN:
(Lemml enters.)
FREIDA: And you must be Fraulein Elsa!
ELSA: I cannot believe I get to be in a play with the legendary LEMML: Excuse me, Mrs. Excuse me, Miss. Mr. Schildkraut
Freida Niemann! asking me to asking you-what for you may I geht/
FREIDA: Please, please-the legend is flesh and blood, I assure FREIDA: Isn't he just adorable! What is your name, kind sir/
you. -, Have you read the script/ LEMML: Lemm! my name is. I-happiness-have serve you-
ELSA: Oh yes, several times. It's very daring, I think. ELSA: -How long have you been in Berlin, Herr Lemm!/

FREIDA: Oh good. You can explain it all to me. LEMML: This is the first week I come Berlin./ This is the first
ELSA: You haven't read it/ week I come Germany!

22 23
 -f,,aa!- PAULA VOGEL ~
~INDECENT~

FREIDA: Herr Lemm!, please speak Yiddish, if you like. I must SCHILDKRAUT: Call the company to the stage!
sound like one of the hordes overrunning-like-well, a LEMML: To the stage please come!
native, if you will.
(Schildkraut nods to Freida, then kisses Elsa's hand.
(Lemml sighs from relief.) When Schildkraut has an audience:)

SCHILDKRAUT: Good morning, good morning! Today we

THEY LAUNCH INTO YIDDISH:
gather in this august building where we last rehearsed The
Merchant of Venice!-to peddle a different pound of flesh!
LEM ML: Thank you, Mrs.! I cannot believe I get this opportu- As you know, a few short months ago, I was "stalked" by
nity-a job in the theater! a young gentleman. As I was sipping my melange in the
Assistant to the stage manager!-I could never imag- Cafe Kranzler, a Polish countryman approached me with
ine such a thing in Balut. And this play-this play! I was such fresh energy and sincerity-traits that have almost
working as a tailor in a little shop but one night my cousin perished in our cosmopolitan Berlin!
said I could come with him to Mr. Peretz's house-and That very night I went home with his script and I woke
I got to hear the play of the genius Sholem Asch! up with a fever to produce The God of Vengeance. To play
FREIDA: Oh, a genius/ A Yiddish genius-a polack genius!- this outcast rejected by pious Jews roaring at his maker!
LEMML (Softly): They got genius outside of Germany, too. Ladies, gentlemen, I give you our playwright of this bril-
This play will be done all over the world. liant little play: Mr. Sholem Asch.
ASCH: Thank you, thank you. I don't want to terrify you-but
(The troupe has wandered in for the first rehearsal.) this is my first play.
This past fall I sat down at my desk in Warsaw and
I asked myself: How do we as artists question our sins in
RuooLPH ScHILDKRAUT MAKES AN ENTRANCE front of a greater audience/. How do we as Jews show our-
selves as flawed and complex human beings/ Never did
Asch steps to the stage behind Rudolph Schildkraut. I dream that this great artist would choose to inhabit a
man on the edge of our society, wrestling with his sins and
his God.
IN GERMAN:
I've written only poetry and short stories, alone at my
desk. And I never realized that when one writes a play, one
SCHILDKRAUT: Lemm!! Where are you/ is no longer alone-
LEM ML: I here am, Mr. Schildkraut. FREIDA: Oy.
SCHILDKRAUT: Let's begin!
(The troupe laughs.)

24 25
 ~ PAULA VOGEL .-a- -»-- INDECENT ~

(Yekel raises the Scroll but does not throw the Torah. The lights
A BLINK IN TIME dim as a curtain falls. Riotous applause.)

1908, BERLIN: OPENING NIGHT,

THE LAST MOMENTS OF THE PLAY A BLINK IN TIME

Asch stands beside Lemml near the curtain backstage. I9II, ST. PETERSBURG

YEKEL: Daughter, just tell me! Are you still a virgin/ Let me see SARAH: Help, he's going crazy!
right into your eyes!! Right into your eyes!! YEKEL: And take the Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it any-
RIFKELE: I ... don't know. more!
YEKEL: What do you mean-you don't know! Are you still-
RIFKELE: Oh, but it's all right for you to do/ I know who you
are and what you do! A BLINK IN TIME
YEKEL: I'll tell you what you know. You know what this Torah
cost/ It cost all of the whores downstairs on their backs I9I4, CONSTANTINOPLE
and their knees for a year! And for what/ Look at me. God
wants me to fail as a father/ As a husband/ Weil there's one SARAH: Help, he's going crazy!
thing I know how to do-MAKE MONEY. You are both YEKEL: And take the Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it any-
paying me back! On your backs. On your knees. more!

(Sarah tries to grab her daughter away, but Yekel strikes his wife.
As his wife cries, he drags his daughter by the hair. Rijkele cries.) A BLINK IN TIME

Down into the whorehouse with you! 1918, BRATISLAVA

(Rijkele weeps •.• it is a hideous sound.) SARAH: Help, he's going crazy!
YEKEL: And take the Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it any-
SARAH: Help, he's going crazy! more!

(She tries to pull Rijkele away from Yekel, who "hits" her away.) (The entire troupe is lined up in the Great Hall at Ellis Island.)

YEKEL: Down into the whorehouse with you! And take the
Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it anymore!

26 27
 ~ PAULA VOGEL -&- ~INDECENT~

are dressed in their Saturday best from the Old Country. As they
1920, ELLIS ISLAND! AN IMPOSSIBLY LONG LINE sing, and celebrate their entry into America, they slowly strip their
shtetl clothes. One by one, they shed their peyes. One older Hasid
A BLINK IN TIME reacts with agrowing terror as he finds himself in the midst of nattily
dressed immigrants. By the end of the song, they have removed his
Lemm! is toward the end of the line. peyes, given him a top hat-together, the now Americanized chorus
does a kick-line, and the former older Has id can outkick them all.)
ASCH: Lemm!! Lemm!! / Over here! Lemm!!
LEM ML: Mr. Asch! Mr. Asch! Mr. Asch!
ASCH: I can't wait to stand beside you next week when you "voT KEN YOU MAKH IN AMERICA?"

raise the curtain on The God of Vengeance at the Bowery

Theatre. It hasn't been the same. The troupe can't wait to Mendel sings "Vot Ken You Makh in America?":
meet you! "
LEMML: Mr. Asch: How did you do such a thing/ Back there: MENDEL:
the weeping, the pleading. -They are sending so many Keyn Amerike tzu kumen, hob ikh keyn mi geshport,
people back-but I got in! kh'hob gedenkt a rov tzu vern un farlosn zikh a bord.
ASCH: There were a few strings we could pull ... Khhob gehat tzvey sheyne peyes, vi yeder frumer yid
LEM ML: Of course! Because you are Sholem Asch! Tzum sof onshtot a bord hob ikh di peyes oykhet nit.
Nobody in Balut believed you sent for me when I came
to say good-bye! (Avram sings:)
ASCH: You were my first advocate.
LEM ML: My life! It is changed! AVRAM:
ASCH: I want to see your face when you see it: Vet ir mir fregn: S'taytsh/ Vi ken dos zayn?

(Chana sings:)
SHoLEM AscH SHows LBMML AMERICA
CHANA:

Asch shows Lemm! the harbor of New York, the shore of Manhattan. Der terets derfun iz, Jibe fraynt mayn':

ASCH: Welcome to America! (Mendel sings:)

LEMML: America! I here am!
MENDEL:

(A song. Subtitles translate the songs lyrics from Yiddish into Eng- Vat ken you makh? Es iz Amerike!
lish. The troupe has just gotten through the hazing process of Ellis
Island. Hopeful, scared, they line up as Hasidim and sing. They (Otto sings:)

28 29
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~
~ INDECENT -.I-

OTTO:
Do in land do pitzt men zikh azoy. THE CAST SINGS THE SONG IN ENGLISH!

(The cast sings:) CAST:

To come to America, I took great trouble.
CAST:
I thought I'd become a rabbi and grow myself a beard.
Vot ken you makh/ Es iz Amerike! I had two beautiful peyes, like every religious Jew.
But in the end, I had no beard and my peyes were gone.
(Avram sings:)
Oh, you ask me how can this be/
AVRAM:
The answer is, my dear friend:
Afile der yid hot dem ponim fin a goy. What can you do/ It's America!
That's how people look here!
(Halina sings:) What can you do/ It's America!
Even a Jew looks like a goy!
HALINA:
Az fun peyes do zet men bay keynem nisht keyn shpor, You don't see any trace of peyes,
Do trogn zikh di peyelech ale meydlekh gor.' Here, it's only the girls who wear them!

(Otto, Vera and Lemm! sing:) What can you do/ It's America!
It's America, so what can you do/
OTTO, VERA AND LEMML:
Vot ken you makh/ Es iz Amerike,

(Halina, Avram, Mendel and Chana sing:) 1921, NEw YoRK CrTY: THE BowERY THEATRE

HALINA, AVRAM, MENDEL AND CHANA!

SARAH: Gvald! Er iz meshige gevorn!
S'iz Amerike, un vot ken you makh/ YEKEL: Dos seyfer-toyre nemt aykh mit, ikh darf es shoyn
nisht mer!
(The cast sings:)
(The sound of thunderous applause. Curtain call.)
CAST:
What can you makh dis is America!
Iz America, un vot ken you makh/

30 31
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

REINA: Mein chhh-hair!-gets so smooth.

A BLINK IN TIME
(Reina stops. They know it is useless.)
1922, NEw YoRK C1TY: REHEARSAL FOR
THE ENGLISH TRANSFER
IN YIDDISH:
Dorothee and Reina are in the midst of afight.
REINA: Mr. Schildkraut won't replace me.
DOROTHEE: Weve got a week to learn the English translation.
FAST AND IN YIDDISH: REINA: And from now on ..• only English between us/ Deine/
I do not know who this Dorothee is.
DOROTHEE: English! Speak English! -Every time we are alone
together, you persist in speaking Yiddish! My God, Reina,
we are supposed to open this show in English next week! IN ENGLISH:
REINA: I don't need your permission to speak Yiddish when we
are in private! DOROTHEE: It's my name now. Dorothee is the same woman
DOROTHEE: Reina! We are the first generation that gets the you love as Deine.
chance our parents never got. To tell our stories. On Amer-
ican stages. We are moving uptown to the Village and (Schildkraut enters with Lemm!.)
I want you to go with me! Please speak English with me!
SCHILD KRAUT: Ladies/ Will you pardon my intrusion/ I would
like to speak to Miss Ruth.
FROM HERE ON THEY SPEAK IN ENGLISH:
(Dorothee stands.)
REINA: Ruth. You can call me Reina at home. Sit. Beside me.
Lees just run lines. DOROTHEE: I'll go.
DOROTHEE: From Sarahs lines: "Brush your hair, get dressed. REINA: She stay.
The minyan's on its way:'
(Schildkraut lumbers to a bench and sits. Lemm! stands. He shares
(Reina reaches for Dorothee·, hands. Reina speaks English with a a look with Dorothee.)
thick Lithuanian accent:)
SCHILDKRAUT: Oy yoy yoy. A long day. Miss Ruth: It's no
REINA: I'll call Manke to come brush mein hor. I love it when good. I talk the way I talk. Miss Dorothee talks better.
she brushes mein hor. Mein hor- But when people hear Rifkele they got to hear a pure girl
DOROTHEE: -Hair- onstage. No shtet!, no girl off the boat. They got to see

32 33
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

their own American daughter. We have to let you go. You REINA: It may be quite some time before I find a job again. So
will be a beauty for our people on the Yiddish stage for throw food. Thank you, Lemm!.
decades to come. Zay moykhl. (I'm sorry.) LEM ML: Mr. Schildkraut says I gotta have an American name

REINA: In English. You tell me leave in English. for the Greenwich Village too. It's Lou. Lou.
SCHILD KRAUT: I am sorry.
DOROTHEE: Mr. Schildkraut/ Ruth and I can rehearse all night (Reina kisses Lemml's cheek.)
until-
REINA: You and Lemm! already run lines with me. Nothing REINA (In English): Good-bye, Lou.
help. Unless you want to quit with me, Deine, no/ I thought
not. Go please, Mr. Schildkraut. (Reina leaves. Lemml finds his broom, and sweeps the rehearsal
room.)
(The two women watch Schildkraut leave with thespian dignity.)

DOROTHEE: Reina- INTRODUCING VIRGINIA McFADDEN

REINA: Gay avek. Jetz. Esther, a middle-aged actress, holding her script, but off-book, paces out
Lemm! blayb. the blocking she knows by heart in rehearsal. She's fast.
Dorothee, Rudolph, and Lemm! rehearse. Morris Carnovsky
watches.

Go AWAY, Now. LEMML STAY,

IN ENGLISH:

DOROTHEE: I'll see you at home.

LEM ML: ''A bridegroom/ Who is he, Mama/"
(Dorothee leaves. Lemm! speaks softly in Yiddish:) VIRGINIA: ''A bridegroom/ Who is he, Mama/"
ESTHER: "A darling boy, a treasure from a wonderful family.
LEM ML: I am so sorry, Miss Reina. And handsome like a rabbi!"
REINA: When did you know/
LEMML: Two days ago. I was told to say nothing. (Beat. Esther breaks character. To Virginia:)
REINA: My role-
LEMML: They have already recast R.ifkele. Okay, this is where you speak your line,
REINA: This will be the only role in my lifetime where I could VIRGINIA: Do I say it from here/

tell someone I love that I love her onstage. ESTHER: Rudolph! Zog der shikse vu ahin tsu geyn!

LEMML: I will come see you on the Yiddish stage and throw CARNOVSKY: She's asking where the beautiful young lady might

flowers. go. Morris Carnovsky ... I play Shloyme, one ofthe pimps.

34 35
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~
~INDECENT~

SCHILD KRAUT: Miss McFadden. Now you go to Dorothee. As SCHILDKRAUT: Can you move your hands up to her bristen
if you was gonna hug your fiance before you was married. more,[)orothee:'
- Yes! Miss McFadden! Perfect! Now! You say! DOROTHEE: - I am not a happy cat ...
VIRGINIA: Where are we going to live, Mama:'
LEM ML: - I don't got nothin' like that in my pages, Mr. Schild-
ESTHER: -Is it break time, yeti Ich volt azihk farkovfn far a kraut.
papiros. SCHILD KRAUT: Sut katsen.
CARNOVSKY: She's saying she'd sell herself for a cigarette. LEM ML: Ten minutes, ladies, gentlemen.
SCHILD KRAUT: Morris Carnovsky:'! You are not in this scene! DOROTHEE: Thank you, Lemm!.
CARNOVSKY: I'm here to help translate .•. VIRGINIA: Thank you, Lemm!.
SCHILD KRAUT: Sha! Where was we/
LEM ML: Just call me Lou. -And may I say; Miss McFadden,
DOROTHEE: She's hugging me like her fiance- I have been wid this show from the first show, and I seen all
SCHILDKRAUT: -Sha! Sha! Miss McFadden. Now you are the shows of this show ... You are gonna be magnificent!
gonna kiss Dorothee the way you gonna kiss your husband (Calling out) Ten minutes!
on your wedding night ...
CARNOVSKY: Lucky young man! (He leaves. A moment.)
DOROTHEE! Are you all right with this/
VIRGINIA (Scared): Yes. DOROTHEE: I know this must be hard to step in like this, but
you are doing a great job.
(Carnovsky and Schildkraut lean in. Dorothee kisses Virginia, VIRGINIA: I don't mean to terrify you, but ... this is my first
gently. Virginia takes a breath and kisses Dorothee back with a show.
bit more conviction.) DOROTHEE (Terrified): That is brave. I mean-this show!
VIRGINIA! I'm hoping it shocks my parents. When can I meet
SCHILD KRAUT: Wunderbar! CARNOVSKY: Nice work, nice the playwright/
work! DOROTHEE: Sholem Asch has practically become a recluse on
Staten Island! He works very hard on his novels. I love
ESTHER (Who just wants her cigarette break): Oy! his work. Sholem Asch shows women as flesh and blood!
SCHILDKRAUT: So you want to just lay yourself against her •.. How hard it is-it was-
it is now the morning after and you are two happy cats ... Mr. Schildkraut compares the rain scene in Act Two
who lecken the kreme ..• to the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. The scene in the
VIRGINIA: Excuse me, Mr. Schildkraut, but could you tell me rain for me is ... is just so ... I'm having a hard time with
in English/ English today.
SCHILD KRAUT: I am speaking in the English! VIRGINIA: It's lesbian, right:'
DOROTHEE: Place my hand where you feel comfortable. DOROTHEE! What:'
VIRGINIA: Did I misread the play/ I thought we were lesbians.
(Virginia does so. The two settle in to each other . •• ) DOROTHEE! I - I -

36 37
 ~ PAULA VOGEL -.i,. ~ INDECENT -ii--

VIRGINIA: Did I say something wrong/ LEM ML: It's a wonderful job you are doing, Miss Virginia.
DOROTHEE: I like to think all the layers of love-sister, VIRGINIA: I can't stop my body from shaking.
mother, daughter- LEM ML: It's only your first time onstage. The fright ••.
VIRGINIA: -Should we practice kissing/ VIRGINIA: Whenever I see Dorothee .•• I feel her onstage so
DOROTHEE: What/ much I get scared I will go up on my lines.
VIRGINIA: I mean, before we have to do it in front of every- LEMML: You have to feel what Rifkele feels. Yes/ This is what
one-should we try it by ourselves/ happens to actors. It's a good thing.
DOROTHEE: I thought you did a great job of it before the break. VIRGINIA: It's hard to breathe.
VIRGINIA: I just thought. Sorry. You certainly do not need any LEM ML: I know nothing about the Christian Church. You was
practice, I must say. brought up in the Church/
DOROTHEE (Starting to sweat): Why don't we first just try it on VIRGINIA: Yes.
the cheek in rehearsal ..• and then, and then we can, we LEMML: Maybe how your Rifkele feels for Manke is a sin in
can- your Church. In this play, how you feel for her and she for
VIRGINIA: Yes. Perhaps we should save the lips for opening you-to me-after the Messiah comes. No hate. No beat-
night. ing. No sin.
DOROTHEE: Do you have any training/ In acting I mean/
VIRGINIA: My parents would never have let me. And at Smith
there was no theater really- A BLINK IN TIME
DOROTHEE: Oh. Smith. As in College/
VIRGINIA: Yes. I've been around lots of girls, so that should THE PERFORMANCE
help ••. in this play.
DOROTHEE: What will shock your parents the most: that you Onstage:
are playing in a Jewish company/ That you are playing a
Jewish girl/ Or that you are playing a girl in love with a SARAH: Rifkele, Rifkele, I need your help. Your papa and the
prostitute/ rabbi will be here soon with the Torah Scroll.
VIRGINIA: I hope all of it! (She laughs)
(Offstage:)

A BLINK IN TIME LEM ML: Ssssh. Breathe deep. Just look at Miss Dorothee while
you shake. Your cue, it is coming •.•
OPENING NIGHT AT THE PROVINCETOWN
PLAYHOUSE: IN THE WINGS (Onstage:)

We watch Virginia and Lemm! offstage and the performance onstage. SARAH: Rifkele, Rivekele. They'll be here any minute.
Offstage: LEMML (Offstage): Now. Geht.

38 39
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

(Virginia goes onstage as Rifkele. Dorothee appears for her cue.

Together Dorothee and Lemml watch. THE CURTAIN FALLS
Onstage:)
Onstage: Virginia breaks from Dorothee, hold and faces her. That was
RIFKELE: I'll call Manke to come up and brush my hair. I love not in the script. Virginia, shaking, throws herself on Dorothee, nuz-
it when she brushes my hair. My hair gets so smooth. (Tap- zling her neck.
ping on the floor) - Manke! Manke! Offstage: Lemml waits with open arms for Virginia as she exits.
SARAH: Rifkele! Don't! Papa's gonna break our necks! She runs into his embrace. Dorothee walks into the wings behind her.

(Sarah goes into another room. We hear her call Rifkele from off- LEMML: Beautiful.
stage:)
(Virginia starts to cry.)
I told you to stop seeing that girl! You got nothing in com-
mon! The guests will be here any moment ... Were arrang- VIRGINIA: I don't ever want to stop acting. Ever.
ing a bridegroom for you.
RIFKELE: A bridegroom/ Who is he, Mama/
SARAH: A wonderful boy, a treasure from a wonderful family. Fu11 COMPANY MEETING:
Handsome like a rabbi. THE PROVINCETOWN PLAYHOUSE

(Dorothee takes a deep, nervous breath and, as Manke, enters IN ENGLISH!

onstage.
Sarah is still in the other room, offstage. The troupe is assembled. Harry Weinberger sits, beaming. Lemm!
Rifkele goes to Manke. The room starts growing dark.) holds a stack of scripts.

RIFKELE (Off, to her mother): Where will we live, Mama/ SCHILDKRAUT: Ladies, gentleman, I give you our producer at
the Greenwich Theatre: Mr. Harry Weinberger!
(Manke and Rifkele look at each other. Manke kisses Rifkele ardently.
Rijkele falls into Manke's arms. She strokes Manke's cheek.) (The troupe applauds.)

SARAH: In your bedroom right under your papa's roof! There HARRY: Of all the places in New York I have called home-
beneath the Holy Scroll your papa bought, you will do the courtroom, the picket line, the labor unions-the best
your wifely duty! home for me has been standing in the back of the orchestra
RIFKELE: Will he love me, Mama/ at the Provincetown Players.
SARAH: Very much, my dearest daughter. Every night. I got in on the ground floor as producer of a little play
by a wild Irishman, name of Eugene O'Neill-The Hairy
(Lemml and Esther watch the climax ofAct One with bated breath.) Apel So I have recently found a new home on Broadway.

40 41
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ +- INDECENT ~

And it got me thinking: What if a play came my way ass. Now instead of us falling in love in this obscenity of a
written by a fellow Jew that told our stories/ world, instead of me trying to rescue you-the new script
So I'm here to announce: Two weeks from today The has me entrapping you into a life of white slavery! I've been
God of Vengeance, starring Rudolph Schildkraut, opens at promoted to Head Pimp!
The Apollo Theatre on Broadway! HARRY: Miss Nelson, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but
this production cannot be seen to celebrate two women in
(Dorothee runs in, script clenched in hand.) love! Afrer we open we can restore-
SC HILD KRAUT: Miss Dorothee-I could make my Broad-
DOROTHEE: I am not acting in this garbage. They've cut the rain way debut in many many shows. Shakespeare. Chekhov.
scene. George Bernard Shaw. I chose a new play by a living Yid-
dish writer.
(Dorothee throws the script on the floor. Schildkraut picks it up LEM ML: We are potchkying wid' a masterpiece, God forbid the
and looks at the title page.) goyim think ladies who work the street are human beings!
God forbid the goyim think that Jewish ladies love each
SCHILDKRAUT: Did I not say to you to keep the new scripts other as human beings! A shanda fur die goy! We could let
to yourself/ the original script speak for us.
HARRY: Miss Nelson, I was about to ask you for a coffee after- ESTHER: Look, here's what's gonna happen. Mr. and Mrs.
Smith get on the train from Connecticut. They bring
(The troupe starts to grab and pass around the new scripts.) Junior and their daughter to the matinee. And what Mr.
Weinberger don't want to see is a red-faced Mr. Smith
DOROTHEE: Did Mr. Asch censor his own play/ pulling Junior out of his orchestra seats and marching
HARRY: Every day downtown we are sold out. Every day the Smith family up the aisles. Because Junior was get-
another stack of hate mail arrives. And I read every single ting a little too excited and they're gonna spend the train
letter that comes in: "Jews. Polacks! Take your filth back ride explaining to their daughter why these two girls are
to your own country. Dirty kikes. You pollute our stage:' kissing-let's just say the farshtinkeneh word: among the
That's what were up against. intelligentsia lesbians sell tickets. Uptown, for Mr. and
DOROTHEE: Did the playwright agree to cuts in the most beau- Mrs. Smith, prostitutes in a brothel is all the excitement
tiful love scene he will ever write/ they can take.
SCHILD KRAUT: We told him and he signed the contract with LEM ML: Mr. Weinberger, did you know, every night during the
the same hand that cashed the check. rain scene, the entire troupe lines up in the wings to watch.
HARRY: For now, we have to strengthen the moral argument ESTHER: It's true.
for audiences on Broadway. SCHILDKRAUT: I watch from stage left.
VIRGINIA: Dorothee-they cut our rain scene? CARNOVSKY: Stage right in the wings.
DOROTHEE: My Manke is no longer a woman in love. She LEM ML: In Berlin. In Moscow. In the Village. Every night. The
is an evil procuress lusting after a little girl to peddle her entire troupe.

42 43
 -tt,,,,,,!- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

DOROTHEE: I-I've sacrificed a lot to play this one flesh-and-

blood woman. IN YIDDISH:
HARRY: If anyone here can't accommodate the changes to the
script, now would be a good time to let us know ..• MADJE: Tell her about Kiev. Tell her about Vilna.

(Silence. Dorothee stands still. Lemml goes to her and puts his arm
around her shoulder. Beat. Another time, another light.) IN ENGLISH:

ASCH: I have just returned from a trip to Europe ..•

" , n
AIN T WE GOT FUN MADJE: He was the head of a delegation for the American Jew-
ish Joint Committee. A fact-finding trip to Europe.
We watch the actors perform an American hit songfrom 1923 Broad- HORNIG: Ah! The Old Country.
way: 'Ain't We Got Fun." The cast sings: MADJE: He was investigating pogroms. Vilna, Kiev.
HORNIG:Oh.
CAST: ASCH: The Old Country.
Every morning, every evening MADJE: He will not talk to me about what he saw. He has not
Ain't we got fun/ been himself since his return.
Not much money, oh, but, honey HORNIG: How would he describe not being himself/
Ain't we got fun/

There's nothing surer IN YIDDISH:

The rich get rich and the poor get laid off
In the meantime, in between time ... MADJE: She wants to know how you feel.
ASCH: I'm unable to sleep. Lick of concentration. Lack of
appetite, lack of enjoyment.
1923: A DocToR, A D1AGN0s1s

IN ENGLISH: IN ENGLISH:

MADJE: He has not slept for weeks. Every evening he leaves our MADJE: A great deal oflack ... He doesn't leave the house. He
bed. Every morning I find him awake in his study. is about to have his Broadway debut, and he hasn't gone
DR, HORNIG: Was there anything about the last few months to a single rehearsal! Every day the stage manager calls,
that was abnormal in your routine, Mr. Asch/ "Where is your husband, Mrs. Asch/"
HORNIG: Here's a prescription of Seconal. You are exhibiting
nervous exhaustion-

44 45
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ +.- INDECENT ~

MADJE: What can we do/ And then we'll be able to go to the Apollo Theatre for our
HORNIG: Complete bed rest is often quite successful with opening night,
women and writers.
For men, however, going West is better suited to the (Hand in hand, they run to their box for opening night.)
restoration of masculine vitality and energy. Cattle roping,
treks in the Rockies, buffalo hunting if there are any buf-
11 1
falo to be found. AIN T WE GOT FUN" (INSTRUMENTAL REPRISE)

1923, ON BROADWAY:
IN YIDDISH:

A LESSON IN LOVE
MADJE: She gives you a choice of being strapped to your bed THE ADDING MACHINE
or-buffalo hunting. THE MAN WHO MARRIED A DUMB WIFE
ASCH (Angry): Ask her if there's anything in her charts that can RED LIGHT ANNIE
map the disintegration of the Jewish psyche due to centu- THE WOMAN ON THE JURY
ries of persecution?! SALOME
OEDIPUS REX
A NIGHT OF LOVE
IN ENGLISH! THE CHERRY ORCHARD
THE POT BOILER
HORNIG: Is he often this, .. angry/ Does he exhibit feelings of THE LOWER DEPTHS
paranoia? IN THE NEXT ROOM
Of course, a brief period of seclusion in Upstate New THE GOD OF VENGEANCE (THE FIRST KISS BETWEEN
York might be just the thing. It is so beautiful in the spring! TWO WOMEN O.N BROADWAY)
Would you both please wait a moment while I consult
with my nurse-
1923: OPENING NIGHT ON BROADWAY, INTERMISSION
(Dr. Hornig exits quickly.)
ASCH: My God.
MADJE: Those arerit minor changes. Oh, Sholem.
IN YIDDISH: ASCH: I-I feel sick to my stomach. My God.
MADJE: Why are there so many police in the house/
MADJE: She wants to commit you. ASCH: It's nothing.
Come home with me. You can rest at home. I'll go with MADJE: I've never attended a Broadway opening before. So are
you to a rehearsal. It will cheer up the troupe to see you! you saying this is what they do uptown/

46 47
 -f.-1- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

ASCH: You know we've had threats. how to brush on the rouge, how to stand in the light, how
MADJE: There were threats downtown. We never had any police to touch Rifkele's hair so lightly, like a feather, like silk ...
downtown. These things ... happen. Well. (She adjusts her wig)
ASCH: Nobody paid attention because we were downtown. No squelching once the ketubah is signed. What are we
MADJE: Are they going to stop the show/ Because of the lesbi- selling to the buyer/
anism/ Because of the Torah/ Because of the prostitution/ Tissue. A thin strip of flesh, a spot of blood, a pinch,
ASCH: Because I'm Jewish. We're polack kikes! On Broadway. and it's over.
Our daughter. A deal is a deal.
(Asch tries to find control.)
(Offstage.
I gotta find Harry. I'm going backstage ... try to look like Spotlight on Officer Benjamin Bailie of the 4th Precinct. Vice
you're enjoying it. Squad.
He watches the confrontation between Sarah, Manke and Rijkele
intently.
Sarah threatens. Rijkele resists and clings to Manke. And then,
BEGINNING OF AcT THREE Manke lets Rijkele go.
The lovers part. Sarah roughly hauls her daughter out of bed.)
Onstage:

SARAH: These things happen. Manke is opening a whorehouse OFFICER BAILIE ENTERS THE WINGS
of her own-with our daughter!
We bought a Torah to keep her pure. We can buy her Lemml stands at the ready for the curtain, watching the last moments of
back. Wait- (She takes off her earrings) The diamond ear- the play. Sholem Asch waits. Officer Bailie softly comes behind Lemml.
rings Yekel gave me, these'll do the trick-
I will be back with our daughter. If I have to drag her by LEMML: Sir?
the hair through the streets. BAILIE: I'm Officer Bailie with the 4th Precinct. Vice Squad.
And you are/
(As Sarah hurries through the streets:) LEMML: I'm the stage manager of this play. We got a cue com-
ing up here, Officer.
And if we pull this off, and we buy her a husband, then BAILIE: They told me to wait until the end of the play. Who
what/ A boy who is scared to look at her, who prays for is this?
his sins if he happens to see her flesh and he, God forbid, LEM ML: That's the playwright, Sholem Asch. He wrote the play.
becomes stiff .•• BAILIE: Boy, Mr. Asch, I'd like to spend a night in your mind.
But then she meets an older girl. Who is rough on the (To Lemml) Will you ask the company to meet me here
edges. Who promises her soft things. And Manke knows when the play is over/

48 49
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

LEMML (Softly): I will do whatever the law asks me to do, Offi-

cer. But I got a cue coming. CAST AND PRODUCER ARRESTED FOR OBSCENITY
ASCH: Are we arrest?
LEM ML! We got a cue coming. Rabbi Joseph Silverman appears on a pulpit. He straightens his beauti-
BAILIE: I don't have a warrant for you, Mr. Asch. Just the actors. ful suit. Lemml and Asch remain frozen at the curtain.

(They listen to the last scene of the play. Pause.)

IN ENGLISH!

A BLINK IN TIME SILVERMAN: And so every time I pick up the paper and I read
about:
THE LAST MOMENTS ON BROADWAY A robber who assaults an eighty-year-old grandmother-
A mother who was at a bar when a fire broke out and
Onstage: consumed all of her children at home-
Men who were caught together in the park in the light
SARAH: Come in. Come in. Your father won't beat you.
ofday-
YEKEL: Don't be afraid, I won't beat you. Don't be afraid.
I lift my face to the heavens and I pray, please, oh Lord,
RIFKELE: Why should I be afraid/
please do not let them be Jewish!
YEKEL: Rifkele. You ran away with Manke last night. Don't tell
This is what it means to be Jewish in America.
me where she took you.
Daughter, just tell me: Ate you still a virgin/ ..• Let me
see right into your eyes!! Right into your eyes! RABBI SILVERMAN-A SERMON, TEMPLE EMANU-EL
RIFKELE: I don't know.
YEKEL: What do you mean-you don't know! Are you still a- SILVERMAN: Each day we struggle to uplifr the wretched
RIFKELE: Oh, but it's all right for you to do/ I know who you refuse who huddle ten to a .room on the Lower East Side,
are and what you do! aware of our American duty and privilege as Jews who
YEKEL: I'll tell you what you know. You know what this Torah have long called these shores our home. We advocate day
cost/ It cost all of the whores downstairs on their backs and night that the restriction on the so-called polack, lit-
and their knees for a year! And for what/ Look at me. God vak, greenhorn!-that these quotas be lifted so that those
wants me to fail as a father/ As a husband/ Well there's one unfortunates of our faith can escape the massacres spread-
thing I know how to do-MAKE MONEY. You are both ing through Europe.
paying me back! On your backs. On your knees. Down But none of us can live in a constant vigilance. And so
into the whorehouse with you! perhaps we go to the theater for a little relie£ to be in a
SARAH: Help, he's going crazy! community that laughs together-
YEKEL: And take the Holy Scroll with you! I don't need it any- And what is in the theater/ What title glares its name in
more! neon lights on Broadway/

50 51
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

The God of Vengeance! By Sholem Asch! ESTHER: Harry was paying her bail when I left. She'll be right
I expect scurrilous lies to my face from the crackpots behind me.
who call themselves Christian-but to be hit by a stone in LEM ML: Miss McFadden's father sent a fancy-shmancy lawyer
my back by a fellow Jew! and she's on her way to North Carolina.
I am not unaware that there is a Jewish underground ESTHER: When the going gets tough, the goyim get goin'.
in our cities. Yes, there are girls who, in fleeing Vilna, Kiev,
Galicia, without father or family, ply their flesh to buy (Reina goes over to the jail's entrance and waits.)
their daily bread. Are there misguided girls among them
who turn to each other in confusion/ Of course. Last night the Vice Squad rounded up girls in the cat-
Yes there are men who buy their bread on the sweat of houses who hadn't paid up, so around three, four A.M. all
these women's backs, rather than the honorable sweat of these girls was pouring in. When I told the ladies I was a
their own. Of these parasites I say: Send them back. thespian, there was a lot of jokes the rest of the night. Ah,
I know you have heard me denounce this play before. sticks and bones.
I acted on my words. I registered the complaint. And I am They was all American girls. Some of their words
happy to tell you that as of last night, the play has been weren't so dainty, but their English was perfect.
dosed down by the Vice Squad, and all cast members have Lou, in my head, I can hear those English words so
been arrested for obscenity. good ..• But then when I open my mouth, it's like the dust
Please join with me in prayer for a righteous verdict. It of Poland is in my throat.
is now in the hands of an American jury. We ask that they
(Dorothee enters. She runs to Reina.)
defend our good name.
DOROTHEE: I didn't think you would come.
REINA: I couldn't sleep when Lou called me. Did you get any
AFTER A NIGHT IN JAIL
sleep/
DOROTHEE: I haven't slept in weeks. Not since I left your bed.
Lemm! and Reina stand anxiously outside the jail.
REINA: Come home with me ..• I said some things I should
Esther exits, sees them, and quickly puts on bravado.
not have said.
DOROTHEE: You said the truth. I would not be ashamed to be
arrested for acting in the play I believed in. I am ashamed
IN YIDDISH!
I acted in this sham I don't believe in.
REINA: You wanted to be on Broadway.
REINA: Esther!
ESTHER: Hello my girl. Oh Reina, We've missed you.
(Reina sees Dorothee scratching herself.)
LEM ML: I have been so worried ... I asked that young Cossack

to take me too, but he didn't want nothing of me. Why are you/-
REINA: Are they keeping Deine/ DOROTHEE: -Bedbugs. You still want me in your bed/

52 53
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ -ti- INDECENT ~

The finest spirit you can find south of Canada. It does the
IN ENGLISH: trick. Drink up.

REINA: -Oh! .•• We are going go home. We will stand (O'Neill belts it back. Lemml tries, and gasps.)
together on th-the-shvel.
DOROTHEE: Threshold. What can I do for you-
REINA: Threshold of our home. First you take clothes off. All. LEMML: -Lou. I just want to say; Mr. O'Neill, what an honor
And then I take off. All. it is for me-
So then I wash them. The clothes.
DOROTHEE: Oh. (O'Neill belts down number two.)
REINA: Then for you I make a chhh-hot bath, we get in th-th-
vane I -And congratulations on the Pulitzer for your play Anna
DOROTHEE: Bathtub- Christie. Thank you for being willing to testify for our
REINA: In our kitchen. You lean against me and I wash your production-
cchayrr ... And den we see ch-what will happen. o' NEILL: Oh hell, wish I could have. It's a corker of a play.
DOROTHEE: Reina? ... mamelushn. LEM ML: What happened in the courtroom just now/ You left
before I could ask-
o'NEILL: The court dismissed all the defense witnesses- We
are all barred from testifying. You all are up the shite's creek
EuGENE O'NEILL AT THE HELL HoLE, without a paddle.
A WEST VILLAGE BAR LEMML:Why/
o'NEILL: So your Mr. Asch and your play itself isn't on trial for
Lemml stands in a dark bar, The Hell Hole, beside Eugene O'Neill, obscenity-the production is.
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Anna Christie. O'Neill is only LEMML: Yessir. But why-
into his first drink. o'NEILL: I couldn't testify to the wholesome and morally forti-
fying nature of this production because I saw it downtown
o'NEILL: Sorry if some of rhe fellas got rough on you. They at the Provincetown Players. They say the script may have
ragged you for a Prohibition Agent hell-bent on breaking been tampered with on its way uptown.
our bottles. LEMML:Oh.
LEM ML: I'm a stage manager. The God of Vengeance. o'NEILL: Was the script changed from when I saw it/
o'NEILL: You could use a drink then. LEM ML: It was.
o'NEILL: Goddamn Harry! Look he's a smart lawyer-he's my
(O'Neill motions to the bartender. Some dark substance in a glass lawyer!-but he doesn't know his rising action from his
is placed on the bar.) purgation. Look, your only chance now, as I see it, is to get

54 55
 -ii- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

Mr. Asch on that defense stand in behalf of his play. He

has to explain some basic things: that when we trade our IN YIDDISH!
souls for money; it's a long and lonely life without love.
MADJE: Husband. That was Lemm! on the phone.
(O'Neill motions for another shot. He is pensive, then he shoots ASCH: I'm trying to write! It's like a goddamn circus down here
it back.) with you and the children.
MADJE: The children and I tiptoe around here like it's a god-
Your Mr. Asch is a fierce moralist.
damn museum. You have got to call him back. This is
They're gonna claim they're closing it because of Homo
Lemm!. He worships you. You just can't discard people.
sexualis. That's bunk.
The court has thrown out all the defense witnesses.
They're closing it because the play shows that every reli-
I've laid out your clothes. You need to change. We have
gion-even Jews-sell God for a price.
to catch the ferry in a half hour.
Give my admiration to Mr. Asch. He's crafted a play
that shrouds us in a deep, deep fog of human depravity:
then like a lighthouse, those two girls. That's a beacon (They start dressing him.)
I will remember.
ASCH: This is a nightmare.
(O'Neill pays up.) MADJE: Harry will translate what you say if he has to.
ASCH: Like he translated my play/
Tell him to keep his head down, don't take any shots to his MADJE: You just have to make an appearance in the courtroom.
kidneys-then up, up, a left jab, right hook combination! ASCH: There are massacres right now all over Europe!! And
LEM ML (Totally lost): Yessir. I'm supposed to care about what I wrote when I was in
o'NEILL: Better luck on his next play. short pants/
LEM ML: Oh, Mr.Asch doesn't write plays anymore-only novels. MADJE: It's still a very important play.
o'NEILL: Smart man. Oh-the stage-I wish I could quit it! ASCH: Madje. I can't. I just can't:
"Oat ole davil sea make dem crazy fools with her dirty
tricks! It's so!"
(Asch is now dressed. He sits on the bed.
Pause.)
(O'Neill lurches from The Hell Hole. Lemml watches him leave,)

MADJE: I wish you had never gone to Vilna. I wish you would
tell me what you saw.
STATEN ISLAND: SHoLEM AND MADJE AscH's HoME
ASCH: I don't want you to know. You're my wife.
FROM NOW ON, ONLY IN YIDDISH! Everything is reversed now: like a photographic negative.
Our garden, our house, the theater, the streets in America
Sholem Asch, slumped over his typewriter, pretends to write. feel very far away. What's real to me-vivid to me-

56 57
 -Ii- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~ INDECENT -ti-

I can't get the images out of my head. It's hard for me to

kiss our children at night. And when as head of our delega- LEMML WATCHES THE SuN R1sE OvER STATEN IsLAND
tion I reported all the atrocities I saw what is the response
from our State Department/ ... These things happen. The sun is just streaking the sky. Madje, in a robe and slippers, unlocks
MADJE: ..• I think you should tell your friends that you are the back door to get the milk. Sitting there on the porch, quietly, his
struggling with this. Tell Lemm!. He's wondering where knees up to his chest, is Lemm!. He gently holds up the bottles of milk
you are. and cream.
ASCH: I have to put myself together. I don't want people to A short scream from Madje.
know I am sitting in my house, weeping.
Will you call Lemm!/
MADJE: Of course. IN YIDDISH:
ASCH: I'll write a letter to the court.
MADJE: Yes. Your words are powerful. LEM ML: Sorry Mrs, Madje. We don't want to disturb your hus-
ASCH: I have to write something to change the way gentiles see band.
us-that make them see that we are one people with one MADJE: Oh my god, Lemm!! I didn't expect- (She takes the
common root-or they will rip us out, root by root, from bottles from him) Are you all right/
the earth until we are no more. LEM ML: I been better. The world spins on.
It's coming. It's coming here. MADJE: How long have you been here/
MADJE: No. It won't happen here. We're safe here. LEMML (Shrugs): I wanted to see what the sunrise was like from
Staten Island.
MADJE: Come in. Come in, Lemm!. I am putting on the coffee.
1923, THE VERDICT: PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF LEM ML: No. Thank you, I do not want to step over your shvel.
NEw YoRK vs. THE Gon OF VENGEANCE MADJE: Oh Lemm!. Please. Please come in.
LEM ML: I might be a dybbuk, A dead soul inside a stage manager.
JUDGE MCINTYRE: The defendants have been found guilty of
presenting an indecent, obscene, and immoral play, exhi- (Asch appears in pants, shirt and sweater. He stands in his thresh-
bition and drama. Although the theatrical profession is old. Lemm! does not turn to him.
not as exalted as the other literary arts, this judgment still Madje goes in, leaving the door open. A moment. Lemml
signals that the People of New York State are entitled to watches the sun rise over Staten Island.
morally upright, wholesome American drama. The time With false heartiness:)
has come when the drama must be purified of Eastern
exoticism, its sexual pollution and its corruptive attitude ASCH: Lemm!! My good man! Please come in.
towards the family. Court dismissed. LEM ML: I don't think I am your good man anymore, Mr. Asch,
ASCH: Well, then, may I join you/
LEM ML: Please yourself.

58 59
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

(Asch sits on the porch beside Lemml.) LEMML: Excuse me, Mrs., but the play belongs to the people
who labor in it! And the audience who put aside the time
The time to join me was yesterday. Or the day before. That to be there in person!
was the time to join me. ASCH: The truth is-I never checked the cuts. I can barely read

ASCH: I owe you an apology. English. I can barely speak! A writer of world literature-
LEM ML: You owe me nothing. (Beat) The letter you wrote to the I couldn't walk into that court, I couldn't walk into
court was very beautiful. You got powerful words, Mr. Asch. that court-in front of all those American reporters-
ASCH: I know you think of me as the young firebrand you saw they would laugh at me! Can you imagine if I opened my
the night we met. mouth/ I would sound just like you.
Every day since the day we read it out loud, I have been
under attack. -Mr. Peretz was right-the play is a stone.
LEM ML: I didn't expect you to defend this play. I expected you IN ENGLISH!

to defend us. Do you know, Mr. Asch, that this play has
ended Mr. Schildkraut's chance at the great roles in the- LEMML: I am done being in a country that laughs at the way
ater/ He will never get the chance on an American stage I speak. They say America is free/ What do you know here
again. is free/ All over Europe we did this play with no Cossacks
ASCH: He is a giant on the stages of Europe. shutting us down. Berlin, Moscow, Odessa-everywhere
LEMML: If he stays in this conntry, the best he can hope for on there is theater! You don't have the money for 4 ticket/
American stages is to play the "Stage Jew:· Tickets over there cost less than a cup of tea. Then you
ASCH: At least he'll make a living. None of you will be out of dress up nice in your best coat and maybe you stand up in
work in- the second gallery, but you can say to your grandchildren:
"I saw the great Rudolph Schildkraut in Sholem Asch's
The God of Vengeance!"
(Lemml rises.)
I am leaving this country.

LEMML: -How dare you! We are not doing your play for the ASCH: Oh, no no no please- MADJE: Lemm!, the places you
money! I could make as much wid' my sewing! still care for have changed ...
Why did you agree to those cuts/ You cut the love
between those two girls. There's only sex left! LEMML: -You have washed your hands clean of this tailor
from Balut! Who doesn't stand up for the name on his tirle
(Madje appears with coffee.) page/ I am taking the manuscript in Yiddish wid me.
(Geshray) Mr. Asch! Your play it changed my life-
ASCH: I told Harry and Rudolph to do what they want. It's my ASCH: Lemml: Listen, wait-

play! MADJE: Wait, Lemm! -

MADJE: And mine. It's my play too. LEM ML: I am going home.

60 61
 ~ PAULA VOGEL -Ho. -tt,,-,:, INDECENT~

A BLINK IN TIME 1938, GROSSINGER's CATSKILLS RESORT:

THE BAGELMAN SISTERS
Lemml starts his return back to Poland.
"BEI MIR BIST DU SHEYN"
As Lem ml continues his trek (a long, heavy, slow journey), the
audience becomes a welljed American audience in the Catskills. We
would never know there's a war going on thousands of miles away. As Chana, a Bagelman Sister, sings "Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn":
our songbirds warble:
CHANA:

Of all the boys I've known and I've known some

Until I first met you I was lonesome
1938, STATEN ISLAND: SHoLEM AscH IN His STUDY
And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light
SELECTED WoRKS OF SHoLEM AscH: And this old world seemed new to me.

A SHTETL (Halina, a Bagelman Sister, sings:)

WITH THE CURRENT
THE MESSIANIC ERA HALINA:
THE GOD OF VENGEANCE You're really swell I have to admit you
SABBATAI ZEVI Deserve expressions that really fit you
UNCLE MOSES And so I've racked my brain, hoping to explain
MOTKE THE THIEF All the things that you do to me.
KIDDUSH HA~SHEM
BEFORE THE DELUGE (Halina and Chana sing:)
THE SAYER OF PSALMS
THE NAZARENE HALINA AND CHANA:
THE APOSTLE Bei mir bist du sheyn, please let me explain,
MARY Bei mir bist du sheyn, means that you're grand
EAST RIVER Bei mir bist du sheyn, again I'll explain
THE PROPHET It means you're the fairest in the land.

Lemml returns home. Asch types furiously. I could say, "Bella, Bella;' even say, "Voonderbar;'
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are!

62 63
 +- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

Vendu bist vild vi an busy. He will want to make

1939: NAKHMEN REHEARSES Amerikaner time for me. I am a Yiddish
Bist afile a Galitsianer writer well-known through-
NAKHMEN: I would like to speak to the French Ambassador. Zog ikh: dos art mikh nit. out Europe ... I come from
Warsaw. Yes. Varsovie.
(He practices his French:) What/ Do I know Sholem
HALINA (Sings): Asch. (Irritated) Of course!
Pardonnez-moi: Je voudrais parler al' ambassadeur. Bei mir bist du sheyn, I gave him notes in the
Bei mir hos tu kheyn, salon during the first
(Beat. Take two:)
Bei mir bist du eyner oyf reading of The God of-
Pardonnez-moi: Je voudrais parler al'ambassadeur. der velt. would you please ask if
Bei mir bist du eyner oyf I might talk to the-
(Nervous, Nakhmen combs his hair, sits, and waits.) der velt.
Bei mir bist du eyner oyf
der velt.
THE ARARAT THEATRE TROUPE, KRAKOWA STREET Bei mir bist du eyner oyf
der velt.
Halina sings:

HALINA:
Kh'vel dir zogn, dir glaykh tzu hern 1939-1941: LETTERS FROM POLAND
Az du zolst mir Jibe derklern
Ven du redst mit di oygn Asch is still typingfuriously. The troupe stands behind him.
Volt ikh mit dir gef!oygn
Vi di vilst, s'art mikh nit. VERA: Dear Madje, dear Sholem: We opened The God of Ven-
geance last night to thunderous applause!
CHANA: Thank you so much for the opening night care
THE FRENCH EMBASSY IN POLAND package!-
HALINA: Thank you so much for the new book, I love your
NAKHMEN: Excuse me, do you speak Yiddish/ novels!
NAKHMEN: Pardonnez-moi:Je voudrais parler al'ambassadeur!
CHANA (Sings): NAKHMEN: OTTO: The authorities are cramming in Jews from Germany
Ven du host a bisele seykhl Hebrew/ Polish/ Un peu/ into every spare inch of space.
Un ven du vaytzt dayn I would like to talk to the NAKHMEN: Peut-etre avez-vous entendu parler de moil Sholem
kindershn shmeykhl ambassador. I'm sure he's Asch has said that I was an inspiration for-

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 -tl-1- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

VERA: -Dear Sholem: You must tell your wife, my dearest water has flowed over the Polish dam. It is hard for me to
friend in all the world, that I feel rich! I have a warm coat ask you: The authorities have confiscated our passports. Is
and a little food. there any way you might put in a word to the consulate to
NAKHMEN (Cheerfully): Mais oui! Sholem Asch! Sholem! make an exception for met'
OTTO: The authorities have walled us into the old Balut dis-
trict to the north. (Asch rips out the page in his typewriter and puts in a new sheet.
HALINA: I can still see the city park across the street! He types:)
NAKHMEN: Sholem Asch est un ami proche!
CHANA: We are still performing The God of Vengeance in all ASCH: Lemm!, I hope I may still call myself your friend.
kinds of spaces: My letters to you have all been "returned to sender:' If
VERA! basements, you get this, will you please respond/
HALINA! cafes,
CHANA: the lobby of the old children's hospital-
OTTO: The authorities forbid us to perform plays! A BLINK IN 'TIME
VERA: Good-bye Shakespeare!
CHANA: Chekhov! The troupe enters a dusty space.
HALINA: George Bernard Shaw!-
OTTo: Songs, dances, skits only six nights a week! Nakhmen is
LEM ML: All right, people! This will make a stage!
learning French.
NAKHMEN: II n'y a plus de visas?!
(The lights grow stronger. The troupe organizes some jumbled
HALINA: Oh Mrs. Asch, I most of all want to lie in the grass
benches. They carry on suitcases. They work. In the corner of the
again!- attic, they find a horsehair sofa with its guts spilling out.)
CHANA: -To smell the grass!
VERA: Nakhmen is learning Spanish!
CHANA; Lemml1 can we use this:'·
NAKHMEN: jEspanolas damas son la mas bella-por favor! ;La
LEM ML: Mrs. Gitla won't mind. Chana, this will be the sitting
embajada esta cerrada/
room ... Halina, over here the stairs ...
OTTO: Nakhmen is learning Chinese!
VERA: Here's the curtain for Miss Manke's place of business.
NAKHMEN! Qing! QingJ-buyao guan damenJ I have been
LEM ML; Yes! Vera, excellent.
waiting for three days in a very long line. -Please! Do not
MENDEL: Let's hang the lamps! Matches/ Lemm!/
close the gates before I -
LEM ML: Mendel! Don't waste a single match.

(A beat.)
(Avram begins to sweep.)
My dear Asch, it has been a long time since we read your
brilliant little play in the living room. A lot of Yiddish Avram, let me do that. You get ready.

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 -Ii- PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

(Otto returns.)
1943, L6Dz GHETTO, POLAND:
Otto/ Do we have an audience/ AN ATTIC TURNED INTO A STAGE
OTTO: A few souls ...
LEMML: All right, people.
(The troupe starts.)
(Lemml opens up another suitcase and draws out an entire loaf of
AVRAM: Let's hope they brought some food. black market bread. There is a gasp.)
OTTO: Or some money.

VERA: I could veyn!

(A projected title begins to flicker on the screen.) HALINA: Lemm!!
LEM ML: Esn! Everyone, take some, take some.
LEM ML: Okay, people, may I have your attention please, every-
one draw near, Five minutes to Act Two, We are a • , • (The troupe breaks off big hunks and carifully distributes.)
few players ... we are missing a few of the cast. Chana.
Remember to keep your shawl on over your hair when you OTTO: Shall I let them in/
are playing one of the working girls downstairs. Mendel,
Avram-you wear the shawls when you play the girls. (Lemml nods.)

(Mendel drapes a shawl over his head.) Places for the Act Two.

MENDEL AND AVRAM: Yes, darling!

LEM ML: So Chana, when you enter as Rifkele- A BLINK IN TIME
CHANA: Without the shawl.
LEM ML: And Halina/ Are you feeling strong enough/ -Then Lemml steps into the light.
you play Manke tonight, and Manke only. We are not wet-
ting the shawls in the rain scene. Okay/ I will read the stage LEMML: Ladies, gentlemen. Let's have a round of applause for
directions. As it is, in your nightgown, you can catch your our band: Making the clarinet wail, we have Mr. Mayer
death of cold- Balsam! (Bow) On violin, our very own Miss Nelly Fried-
HALIN A: rm fine. man! (Bow) And on accordion, the dexterous Mr. Moriz
Godowsky! (Bow) Welcome to our show tonight. As you
(The projected title now comes into focus:) know, six nights a week we gather together to sing songs
we know and love, to dance, to escape our daily lives. But
on the seventh night ... God created Yiddish theater. First,
let me give our thanks to Mrs, Gitla Bronowski for letting us

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 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~
-ti-- INDECENT ~

use this spacious attic for our show (A smattering of applause) MANKE: Yes, Rifkele. Come, we'll stand in the May rain, splash
Thank you, Mrs. Gitla! Tonight we are going to perform Act water over each other and get wet down to our skin.
Two of the greatest play ever written by one of our country- RIFKELE: Shhh. Speak softly.
men, Sholem Asch. The God of Vengeance. As you all know, as MANKE: I'll loosen your hair. I want to wash your hair in the
a young man I was privileged to hear the first reading of this ram.
masterpiece in Warsaw, and it changed my life. RIFKELE: I heard you tapping and I tiptoed out so quietly Papa
Last week we presented Act One, and God willing, next couldn't hear me.
week we will still be here to perform Act Three. MANKE: The night is so beautiful, the rain is so fresh and
Does anyone here need to know what happens in everything is so sweet in this air.
the first act/ So you know last week Act One happened RIFKELE: Shhh, shhh. My father beat me.
upstairs in Yekel's living room, MANKE: He won't hurt you anymore.
Tonight takes place in another location in Yekel's house:
the cellar.
Manke, the star of his stable, is forming a friendship- THEY FEEL THE RAIN
yes/ With the daughter. Okay, that's all we need to know.
Speaking of gelt •.. should tonight's performance so Manke leads Rifkele into a flood of light. They turn their faces up to
move you, we would appreciate any contribution ... a the light. They feel the rain. They reenter the brothel wrapped in their
mark or two, any food you may be able to spare ... And if shawls. Manke leads Rifkele to the sofa.
our performance does not please you, please throw food!
Kugel! Rugelach, anyone/ We have made slight cuts to the MANKE: Are you shivering, Rifkele/
script so we do not break curfew. And in tonight's perfor- RIFKELE: I'm cold.
mance, in the role of Manke, played so brilliantly the last MANKE: Let me wrap my body around you.
few years by our own Ada Borenstein ••. Halina Cygansky RIFKELE: -Thar1s nice.
is stepping in tonight. To set the scene: It's late night in the MANKE: Oh, You smell like grass.in the meadows ... you let me
ghetto. And it's raining. Without further ado, The God of wash your breasts in the rain.
Vengeance. Act Two. RIFKELE! I did.
MANKE: Your breasts are so pale. So soft.
RIFKELE: Manke. I want you to teach me.
THE RAIN SCENE MANKE: Wait, wait ... let me brush your hair-like a bride's
hair with two long braids. Do you want me to Rifkele, do
Manke softly taps for Rijkele. you want us to ... ?
RIFKELE: Yes. Yes.
MANKE: Rifkele, Rifkele .. . MANKE: You are my bride-you take my breath away! We sit
RIFKELE: Manke, Manke ... did you call me/ at the shabbes table after your parents have gone to sleep.

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 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

Were alone. And we're shy. But you are my bride and I am
your bridegroom. "WIEGALA "
RIFKELE: I want you to take me.
MANKE: Are you surer Halina and Chana sing "Wiegala":

(Beat.) HALINA AND CHANA:

Vigala, Vigala, Vayer
RIFKELE: I want to taste you. Der Vind shpilt aufder Layer.
Ir shpilt tzu zis im grunen Rid
(They kiss.) Di Nachtigal, di zing ir Lid.
Vigala, Vigala, Vayer
MANKE: Isn't it good, Rifkele/ Isn't it good/ Der Vind shpilt aufder Layer. AN IMPOSSIBLY LONG
RIFKELE:God yes. LINE
MANKE: Now we lie together in one bed. No one will see. THE SMELL OF SMOKE
Would you like to stay with me all night in one bed/ AND ASH IS THICK
RIFKELE: I do. I do. IN THE AIR,
MANKE: I can't breathe. Come to me. Come to me. THEN THE WIND
SHIFTS DIRECTION.
(Suddenly there is the sound offstage of a door being kicked open; Vigala, Vigala, Verne
and the terrifying sound of boots running up the stairs. The troupe Der Mond is di Lanterne
knows the time has come.) Ir shtit am dunklen
Himeltzelt
CHANA: I'm scared. Und shout hernider auf di Veit.
Vigala, Vigala, Verne
Der Mond is di Lanterne.
A BLINK IN TIME THE TROUPE CAN
A BLINK IN TIME , • , SMELL
THE GRASS IN THE
The troupe forms a singlejile line. We have come to our Kaddish. MEADOW,
"Wiegala" was written by Ilse Weber, a nurse at the Childrens Hospi-
tal at Theresienstadt. She sang this lullaby for the children in the wards. LEMML CLOSES HIS
When it came time for the children to be transported to Auschwitz, Ilse EYES,
volunteered to go with them. It is said she sang this song in line to the HE MAKES A WISH,
chambers: "The wind plays on the lyre, the nightingale sings, the moon
is a lantern ... sleep, my little child, sleep." LEMML (Softly): Please don't let this be the ending ...

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 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

MADJE: We are inviting him over our shvel while we still have
IN HIS MIND, ONLY HE CAN SEE , , , one.
RIFKELE AND MANKE BURST OUT OF THE LINE.
THEY ESCAPE, (A tapping at the door.)
LEMML OPENS HIS EYES.
That's him.
ASHES To AsHEs: THE TROUPE RETURNS TO DusT ASCH: Rome is burning and you want to put on a play!
MADJE: Rome is always burning! Last night you said you'd con-
A BLINK IN TIME
sider it. Sholem.
Just give him a moment of your time.
Oklahoma plays on a record player. It is very loud. The troupe stares
ASCH: I am beside myself with anticipation.
into the audience, and as the music plays:
MADJE: Be nice.

(Madje ushers in a young man,John Rosen.)

VERY FEW WRITE IN YIDDISH ANYMORE

1952, BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT: MOVING DAY, ROSEN: Thank you, Mrs. Asch, I won't keep your husband long.
SHOLEM AND MADJE AscH's HousE
(Madje, with a warm smile, exits.)
Madje enters an empty room with two suitcases.
Mr. Asch. I just want to say what a great honor rhis is for me.
ASCH: So you are a lover of Yiddish literature, Mr.-/
IN YIDDISH: ROSEN:John Rosen.John. My grandparents speak Yiddish, but
myparents-
MADJE: Everything's packed up. Once we get to London we'll ASCH: Your parents wanted y<:m to grow up American. This
tell them where to send the furniture. We'll have a nice story I have heard. Madje tells me rhat you got into Yale!
visit with our daughter. We'll figure it out. It is easier for a camel he should go through the eye of a
ASCH: We could just leave it. Everything. needle than a Jew he should enter the kingdom of Yale!
. .. Madje has read your new translation of rhe play.
(Beat.) I have not. She tells me it is good.
ROSEN: I brought you the most recent copy. I know I am young,
MADJE: I told that nice young man to come by for a quick visit but ... I am starting a new theater company for the great
before we left. classic works of the stage rhat ask urgent moral questions!
ASCH:Who/ ASCH: In Connecticut/ Well good luck with rhat, young man!
MADJE: The one who is producing your play. ROSEN: The God of Vengeance has rhe urgency of today! - I want
ASCH:Now?! to bring it to American audiences just as you wrote it-

74 75
I:
a
-
; <>!,
 ~ PAULA VOGEL ~ ~INDECENT~

ASCH: Young man: I have to tell you-I no longer care what is MANKE: Rifkele, Rifkele- Di nakht iz azoy lib, der regn iz
done on the stages of this country. Theater companies are azoy frish, un alts shmekt azoy in der lufr.
started by young men who have the luxury to care about RIFKELE: Shvayg, shvayg. Der tate hot mikh geshlogn. Er hot
where they live. Or the false belief that they will be allowed di shtib tsugeshlosn, un hot dem shlisl bahaltn-
to live in the place they care about. MANKE! Er vet dikh keynmol mer nisht vey tin.

(Asch brings out a letter from his jacket pocket.) (As Rifkele and Manke dance in the rain, Lemml and Asch join
them.)
A little invite from the Congress. The House of the Un-
Ametican Activities. In 1905 I was attracted by socialists.
We are all brothers! Ale brider! END
ROSEN: Mr. Asch! You must fight this!
ASCH: Mr. John-have you ever lost audience members/ Did
you watch them walk up the aisle in the middle of your play/
ROSEN: Yes! That's happened to me all the time at Yale. Towns-
people fleeing up the aisles!
ASCH: Ach. I too have lost audience members. Six million have
lefr the theater. I am sorry to waste your time. (Upset) I will
not let this play be produced. No more. I wrote it in a dif-
ferent time. The time has changed on me. (Beat) You must
excuse me-the way out you know.

(Rosen, stunned, stands, then moves toward the door. Asch cal~ out:)

In the words of a much wiser man-ifI was you, burn it!

ROSEN: Mr. Asch: I may have to wait many many years-but
I am producing your play!

(Rosen shuts the door behind him. Asch stands in silence. Beat. He
picks up the two suitcases and starts to exit.
The ghost of Lemml stands in his way.
Asch suddenly turns back into the room. And there in his
empty living room it starts to rain. The dead troupe rises to join
him, watchingfrom the wings.
He remembers:)

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