When Paula Vogel’s play Indecent opened at the Cort Theatre in 2017, it marked the first time the highly-acclaimed playwright had a play on Broadway. Vogel is the writer behind The Baltimore Waltz, The Long Christmas Ride Home and How I Learned To Drive. The latter won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1997. In other words, why did it take so long for Vogel to have a Broadway production? However long it took, Indecent is a great way to break that glass ceiling.
With most of its Broadway cast intact, Indecent is now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre through July 7th. The play tells the story of the creation and multitude of productions of Sholem Asch’s The God of Vengeance. Written in 1906, it depicted the lives of a family who lived upstairs from a brothel. The patriarch hoped to marry his daughter off to a proper boy, but she falls in love with a woman in the brothel. This was very progressive material in 1906.
Vogel follows the characters in and out of the play as it goes from what we would now call a table reading through to it ending up on stage in New York in 1923 where its run was truncated when authorities shut the production down for obscenity.
This is certainly a drama, but there is humor and there is also music in the production. The Los Angeles cast features Elizabeth A. Davis, Joby Earle, Harry Groener, Mimi Lieber, Steven Rattazzi, Richard Topol and Adina Verson.
Rebecca Taichman, who directed the Broadway production, returns to direct here. She won the Tony Award for Best Direction a Play for Indecent. The show also won a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play. Though it was also nominated for Best Play, it did not win.
As often happens, the lack of the Tony for Best Play did not immediately boost sales and the production announced a closing date of June 25th. But that didn’t happen. Word of mouth spread about the production and that closing was postponed until August 6th. To say that’s unique for a Broadway production is an understatement. But it speaks to the power of Vogel’s writing, the joy of the performances and the way in which this story still resonates today.
For tickets go here.
Check back soon for our interview with Harry Groener about Indecent and his long career on stage in both Los Angeles and New York.
Main image: L-R: Richard Topol, Mimi Lieber, Adina Verson, Harry Groener, Elizabeth A. Davis, Steven Rattazzi and Joby Earle in “Indecent” (Photo by Charles T. Erickson)
All production photos by Charles T. Erickson/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group
