Download God of Vengeance Its place in history

God of Vengeance
Its place in history
The God of Vengeance premiered in Yiddish theatre in 1907. It was translated into
many languages and performed worldwide for years – including Yiddish theatre in
New York. On February 19, 1923, it opened on Broadway.
Only upon its Broadway premiere did controversy begin.
Fifteen days after opening, the cast, producer, and theatre owner were arrested for “presenting an obscene, indecent,
immoral, and impure theatrical production.” Why? Of equal interest, why only after premiering on Broadway?
In 2000, Donald Margulies’s adaptation opened, moving the setting from Poland to New York’s Lower East Side in 1923.
The Controversy
The Conclusion, and Today
•  The God of Vengeance featured the first lesbian love
scene in Broadway history
•  All fourteen defendants posted bail and continued
performing
•  Historians speculate that it was actually reduced from the
original non-English play’s presentation
•  The controversy helped business – The God of Vengeance
ran for 133 performances
•  New York critics did not overtly mention the lesbian plot
point in their reviews
•  After the play closed, the trial occurred
•  The characters don’t even question the notion of the
women together, as much as the betrayal of parents.
Was the lesbian scene truly the point of controversy?
•  Of the relationship between Rivkele and Manke, Asch
wrote in the original program that their love “is not only an
erotic one. It is unconscious mother love of which they are
deprived… rather than the sensuous, inverted love of one
woman for another.”
•  Do you agree? Did Margulies treat it that way?
•  Rabbi Joseph Silverman, a strong voice in New York,
portrayed the play as indecent and blasphemous. Of
particular offense, all brothel characters (pimp, prostitute)
were Jewish.
•  Rabbi Silverman helped get the attention of the district
attorney, to press charges
•  Rudolph Schildkraut (Yankel), “I have played this role for
13 years, and in three languages, and never has anyone
considered it immoral.”
•  This morality play touches on central themes of theology,
change in the modern world, rebellion against parents, and
faith. It humanizes sex workers and its characters focus on
the scandal of the aforementioned themes rather than of
the lesbian acts.
•  What is the play’s real controversy? What should it
be?
•  Yiddish theatre’s popularity, in part, was that it often
presented real, raw portrayals of the lives and dilemmas of
its audience – in a way more frank than Broadway was
accustomed
•  Several rabbis testified in support of the play
•  Found guilty – the director and producer were fined $200
each (less than their original $300 bail), and all actors
received suspended sentences
•  Verdict was front page news in The New York Times
•  First American jury to find performers guilty of presenting
obscene material
•  The New York State Court of Appeals reversed the
convictions in 1925, because the play manuscript was not
allowed as evidence during the trial
•  Virtually every Yiddish theatre in the world performed the
play
•  In 1946, London’s chief Rabbi, Harris Lazarus, disapproved
of a London production: “The theme is offensive and not fit for
the public stage… This play could not have been intended for
the stage either in Russia or in any other Jewish centre. It is a
sordid theme, repulsive in personnel and diction, and
offensive to any feeling of decency in the use of the Scroll for
such purpose.”
•  Rabbi Lazarus ignored that the Yiddish play had been
performed in London, and a Russian production in 1908 was
a huge success
•  The central themes of theology, change in the modern world,
rebellion against parents, and faith ring true as much today as
a hundred years ago.
•  How surprised would a modern audience be to consider
these issues prevalent among Jews in 1907? Even though
they’ve seen them recently in Fiddler on the Roof?
•  Popular culture often portrays the Jewish family as comedic,
or fracturing from assimilation. The Old Country is often
romanticized.
•  Between the extremes, where does reality actually lie?
Yiddish Theatre and Morality Plays
Yiddish theatre was a significant antecedent to modern theatre. In part, it
influenced style and approach; in part, it brought many prominent performers (or
their parents) to American and western Europe.
God of Vengeance, one of the iconic dramas of Yiddish theatre, is a prime
example of the morality play – a long-standing form of theatre through the
centuries.
Yiddish Theatre
•  Commonly regarded as starting in 1870s Romania
•  Banned in Russia in 1883, causing exodus that brought
artists west
•  Included operetta, musical comedy, satire, revues,
melodrama, naturalist drama, modernist, expressionist
•  Performed in Central/Eastern Europe, Berlin, London. Paris,
New York
•  Height was 1870s – 1930s (when, obviously, much of it in
Europe was wiped out)
The Morality Play
•  A play which teaches a moral lesson, often through the use
of allegorical characters and a choice to live as godly or evil
•  Started in the 1400s, most popular in the 1500-1600s, they
shifted away from religious-based plays to something more
secular
•  The protagonist faces others who personify different moral
attributes, and struggles between their influences
•  Sometimes the moral lesson comes from the protagonist’s
failure, rather than success in the end
Antecedents
•  The moral attributes in most early morality plays revolved
around the Christian classification known as the seven deadly
sins
•  1500-1700s Jews in ghettos were exposed to secular
theatre, where a most popular theme in Christian Europe was
the Book of Esther
•  A popular form, its influence carried forth for centuries. For
example, Shakespeare’s MacBeth is a prototypical morality
play
•  Yiddish theatre often controversial; roots in Purim shpiels
•  In contemporary film, The Chronicles of Narnia and the
(1700s and earlier) which were often too profane to perform in Batman film The Dark Knight (the one with The Joker) are
synagogue
descendents of the morality play
At its height
•  ~1902, Lincoln Stephens (renowned New York journalist)
said that theatre at that time in Yiddish outshone what was
being played in English
•  Ibsen, Tolstoy, Shaw often performed in Yiddish theatre
before Broadway
•  Around 1900, the four main Yiddish theatres in New York did
1100 performances per year for two million patrons
Legacy
•  Aside from the stereotypical notion that modern Broadway
was significantly created by Jews, Yiddish theatre specifically
had some direct influences
•  Noted Yiddish actors crossed to Broadway, such as Jacob
Adler (one of the definitive Shylocks of all time) and Boris
Thomashevsky
•  Influential 20th-century acting teachers Lee Strasberg and
Stella Adler (Jacob Adler’s daughter) grew up around Yiddish
theatre – some of their teachings are based on, and
sometimes response against, Yiddish theatre styles
•  Yiddish theatre left a big stamp on Jewish humor (see Mel
Brooks) and providing a tinge of tragedy or melancholy amid
comedy (see Fiddler on the Roof)
•  Historically preceded by mystery plays, which were more
directly religious and, thus, more constrained in what they
could present, and how
Morality in God of Vengeance
•  In the morality play that is God of Vengeance, who is the
protagonist going through moral conflit? Is there more than
one?
•  Every character in the play can represent a moral attribute.
Some more than one. What are they?
•  What realms of morality are in question in the play?
Theological? Familial? Sexual? Social? Others? Which is the
most central to the story? Which is most important to the story,
or to a modern audience?
•  Are any of the moral facets you thought of above related to
the reasons why the original 1923 Broadway production was
so controversial?
•  In the end of the play, who wins? Does anyone?
God of Vengeance
One play, Two authors
God of Vengeance was originally written by Sholem Asch in 1907. Translated into
many languages, performed worldwide, it premiered on Broadway in English in
1923.
In the 1990s new interest drove new translations, including a production by
Stephen Fife. But it got the most visibility when Donald Margulies – the unofficial
contemporary Jewish American playwright – wrote his adaptation in 2000.
Sholem Asch
(1880-1957) Polish-born Yiddish-language writer
Donald Margulies
(1954-present) American playwright
Novelist, playwright, essayist
Professor of English and Theatre Studies, Yale University
Central writer in 20th Century Yiddish literature
Frequently produced by Manhattan Theatre Club
12-volume collected works (early 1920s)
Plays often explore personal impact of ethical dilemmas
The Forward (largest Yiddish newspaper) dropped and
attacked him for promoting Christianity via later novels The
Nazarene, The Apostle, and Mary
Plays often probe common takes on assimilation, the
Holocaust, and comedic Jewish family
Novels (selected)
•  Motke Ganev (Motke the Thief, 1916)
•  Kiddush ha-Shem (1919)
•  Farn Mabul trilogy (Before the Flood or The Three Cities,
1929-31)
•  East River (1946) – 6 months New York Times best seller
(1 week at #1)
•  The Nazarene (1939)
•  Moses (1951)
Plays (selected)
•  Got fun Nekomeh (God of Vengeance, 1907)
•  Der Veg tsu Zikh (The Way to Onself, 1917)
•  Motke Ganev (Motke the Thief, 1917)
•  Onkl Mozes (Uncle Moses, 1918)
Plays (selected)
•  The Loman Family Picnic (1989)
•  Sight Unseen (1992) – Obie Award; Pulitzer Prize finalist
(1992)
•  What’s Wrong with This Picture? (1994)
•  The Model Apartment (1995) – Obie Award
•  Collected Stories (1996) – Pulitzer Prize finalist (1997)
•  Dinner with Friends (1998) – 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
•  God of Vengeance (2000) – premiered at ACT (Seattle)
•  Brooklyn Boy (2003)
•  Shipwrecked! An Entertainment (2007)
•  Time Stands Still (2009) – 2010 Tony Best Play nomination
•  Coney Island Christmas (2013)