Julia Luebke
Kelsey Anne Johnson (left) and Lizzie Cutrupi portray women defying taboos.
Music Theatre of Madison is known for doing small, offbeat theater pieces — weird little musicals that usually fly under the radar of larger and more mainstream groups. But with their current offering, Paula Vogel’s Tony Award-winning play Indecent, director Meghan Randolph and MTM have bested every theater in the state by performing this shimmering gem first. And the production, running through Feb. 15 in the Play Circle in the Wisconsin Union, is simply magnificent.
With a bare, wooden stage flanked with footlights; sets and props made entirely of vintage suitcases; a three-person klezmer band (violin, clarinet and accordion) that blends into the cast; and a nimble ensemble of seven extraordinary actors; Indecent tells an expansive story about the Polish/Jewish playwright Sholem Asch and the members of a theater troupe whose lives were irrevocably changed by their experience of producing God of Vengeance.
The play caused a scandal when it appeared on Broadway in 1923, after a successful run on stages all over Europe and in New York’s Greenwich Village. Translated from Yiddish to English for its move uptown, the production was shut down and its cast arrested on obscenity charges stemming from the “immorality” of its Jewish characters, including a brothel owner and his stable of prostitutes, and Broadway’s first lesbian kiss. Some heralded it as genius, while others wanted to burn every copy.
In 2017, the play with music, Indecent, also caused a stir. It was Paula Vogel’s first production on Broadway, after a brilliant writing and teaching career that included virtually every playwriting accolade imaginable, including a Pulitzer Prize. Using the long, strange trip of God of Vengeance as its frame, the play weaves in and out of 50 years of tumultuous history that includes censorship, anti-semitism, homophobia, the immigrant experience in the U.S., nativism that shamed newcomers for speaking their own language, European pogroms and the rise of Hitler. Asch’s lifelong struggle, questioning his own role in the persecution of Jews in the U.S. and Europe, is a haunting refrain. It is a stark juxtaposition with the actors in Vengeance celebrating being truly “seen” for the first time.
Short scenes that skip through time are shepherded along an enchanting route with musical interludes, songs that evoke each period, clever blocking and gorgeous projections that locate the year, the place, and even the language that’s being spoken. Inventive choreography by Brian Cowing is executed beautifully, from music hall routines to traditional dances.
A true ensemble, the cast is uniformly breathtaking, playing many different characters and transitioning between accents seamlessly. As “The Middle Woman” and “The Ingenue Woman” Lizzie Cutrupi and Kelsey Anne Johnson share some of the most powerful scenes in the show, as women in love portraying characters in love. Their “rain scene,” which is touted as a romantic moment that rivals the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, is, in fact, the climax of an exceptionally gorgeous and moving show.
And while the stage manager Lemml (Micah Cowsik-Herstand) admits that he can’t remember the end of the play he’s about to present to us, the audience will have no such trouble. Music Theatre of Madison’s Indecent is a landmark achievement for the company. And it is truly unforgettable.
