‘Indecent’ To Air On PBS ‘Great Performances’ This Friday

Image by Carol Rosegg

By Talya Zax November 13, 2017

“Indecent,” Paula Vogel’s loving paean to Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” will get its own resurrection this Friday; a filmed performance of the play from its Broadway run will air on PBS’s “Great Performances.”

“Indecent,” which won two Tony Awards — including one for director Rebecca Taichman, a member of this year’s Forward 50 — was Vogel’s first play to be produced on Broadway. Prior to its spring and summer 2017 run on the Great White Way, the play was produced Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre.

The play is a blissfully imagined history of “God of Vengeance,” from its first explosive reading at I.L. Peretz’s Warsaw literary salon, to the infamous obscenity trial over the play’s lesbian kiss — the first ever depicted on Broadway — to Asch’s late-in-life disavowal of his first major work.

“’Indecent’ points to both the significance of ‘God of Vengeance’ and to the tragedy surrounding its creation, success, and ultimate New York rejection,” the Forward’s Jesse Oxfeld wrote, reviewing “Indecent” on Broadway. “And that rejection is the rejection of the different, the minority, the embarrassing, the other.”

“Indecent,” which will air as part of the “Great Performances” series “Broadway Best,” will join a roster of shows including “In the Heights,” and “She Loves Me.”

Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.

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