美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Indecent': A Play About A Yiddish Play That Was Ahead Of Its Time

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Nominations¹ for the Tony Awards come out Tuesday. Among the favorites for best play is Paula Vogel's "Indecent." Paula Vogel is one of this country's most acclaimed² contemporary playwrights⁴. She got a Pulitzer in 1998. This year she's being honored for lifetime achievement at the Off-Broadway Obie Awards, but she has never had a work on Broadway until now with "Indecent." As Jeff Lunden tell us, it's the story of a controversial century-old Yiddish play following its productions across continents and decades.

JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE⁵: The actors are already seated at the back of a bare stage when the audience enters the theater. The lights go down. The performers get up and begin a ghostly dance to klezmer music as bits of ash fall out of their overcoats. One of them steps forward.

RICHARD TOPOL: (As Lemml) My name is Lemml. You can also call me Lou. I am the stage manager tonight. Usually, you can find me backstage. We have a story we want to tell you about a play - a play that changed my life. Every night, we tell this story. But somehow I can never remember the end.

LUNDEN: And for the next hour and a half, this troop of actors takes the audience through the history of Sholem Asch's 1907 Yiddish play, "God Of Vengeance⁶." Paula Vogel's play about the play is a collaboration⁷ with director Rebecca Taichman. It depicts⁸ the author of the original, the actors who performed in it, the controversy⁹ surrounding it, the lost culture from which it came. Richard Topol plays the stage manager.

TOPOL: One of the things that Paula and Rebecca are so adamant¹⁰ about is that the play make us understand that we can lose culture. Reminding us that Yiddish was this vibrant¹¹ culture that is almost dead. And part of what happened in the 20th century and the Holocaust¹² made it so that there were a lot of Yiddish speakers who were no longer with us.

LUNDEN: "Indecent" follows the play through its debut¹³ in Europe to performances in New York and just past World War II. "God Of Vengeance" was controversial from the start, depicting¹⁴ a Jewish brothel owner who bribes¹⁵ a rabbi so that the rabbi's son will marry his daughters, says playwright³ Paula Vogel.

PAULA VOGEL: The only problem in the original play is that the daughter falls in love with a prostitute downstairs. So this was actually the first presentation, and it was of lesbian love.

LUNDEN: Vogel introduces the actors as they prepare for the initial performance.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As Lenk) How do these women live? How do they dress? What do they do in bed, and how do they do it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As Verson) You mean prostitutes?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As Lenk) Good God, no. We all know what prostitutes do.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As Verson) Oh. So - so you asked him about lesbians?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As Lenk) You better learn to say the word out, my girl. Four weeks from today we will be kissing center stage.

LUNDEN: The play may have been controversial, but it was a critical success when it was performed all over Europe and on New York's Lower East Side in Yiddish.

VOGEL: And then someone got the bright idea - let's translate it into English and put it on Broadway at which point everyone is arrested.

LUNDEN: Throughout the play's history, many of the objections to it came from Jews themselves, says actor Richard Topol.

TOPOL: Don't let people see this play. It's too inflammatory. And for them it's inflammatory mostly because of the way that it makes Jews look bad. And at the time, they didn't want to have that out in the world, where people who were already anti-Semitic had any more reason to be anti-Semitic.

LUNDEN: By the time the actors went on trial for "Indecency" in 1923, director Rebecca Taichman says the U.S. government had enacted¹⁶ drastic laws restricting immigration.

REBECCA TAICHMAN: Really the country shut down, and this wave of anti-immigration sentiment was sweeping¹⁷ the country. A huge part of what was happening was a sense that these sort of dirty Eastern European Jews were coming in and taking over and keep them out.

LUNDEN: The stage manager decides to move back to Poland after the "Indecency" trial.

TOPOL: (As Lemml) I am done being in a country that laughs at the way I speak. They say America is free. What do you know here is free?

LUNDEN: He continues to champion the play in his native Poland even as World War II begins. Paula Vogel finally shows the complete scene with its controversial lesbian kiss almost at the end of "Indecent" when the original play is performed in an attic¹⁹ in the Lodz ghetto²⁰.

VOGEL: Believe it or not, it's actually the purest love scene I've ever read in Sholem Asch's play that I put akin¹⁸ to Romeo and Juliet. And that is an extraordinary radical²¹ act, not only for 1097, but I would say for 2017.

LUNDEN: And it's in Vogel's juxtaposition²² of past and present, poetry and horror that the audience finally understands why they saw the ashes come from the actor's sleeves at the beginning of the play. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.

1 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

2 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

3 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

4 playwrights   

n.剧作家( playwright的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We're studying dramatic texts by sixteenth century playwrights. 我们正在研究16 世纪戏剧作家的戏剧文本。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hung-chien asked who the playwrights were. 鸿渐问谁写的剧本。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 vengeance   

n.报复，报仇，复仇

参考例句：

• He swore vengeance against the men who murdered his father.他发誓要向那些杀害他父亲的人报仇。
• For years he brooded vengeance.多年来他一直在盘算报仇。

7 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

8 depicts   

描绘，描画( depict的第三人称单数 )； 描述

参考例句：

• The book vividly depicts French society of the 1930s. 这本书生动地描绘了20 世纪30 年代的法国社会。
• He depicts the sordid and vulgar sides of life exclusively. 他只描写人生肮脏和庸俗的一面。

9 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

10 adamant   

adj.坚硬的，固执的

参考例句：

• We are adamant on the building of a well-off society.在建设小康社会这一点上，我们是坚定不移的。
• Veronica was quite adamant that they should stay on.维罗妮卡坚信他们必须继续留下去。

11 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

12 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

13 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

14 depicting   

描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• a painting depicting the Virgin and Child 一幅描绘童贞马利亚和圣子耶稣的画
• The movie depicting the battles and bloodshed is bound to strike home. 这部描写战斗和流血牺牲的影片一定会取得预期效果。

15 bribes   

n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• corrupt officials accepting bribes 接受贿赂的贪官污吏

16 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

17 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？

18 akin   

adj.同族的，类似的

参考例句：

• She painted flowers and birds pictures akin to those of earlier feminine painters.她画一些同早期女画家类似的花鸟画。
• Listening to his life story is akin to reading a good adventure novel.听他的人生故事犹如阅读一本精彩的冒险小说。

19 attic   

n.顶楼，屋顶室

参考例句：

• Leakiness in the roof caused a damp attic.屋漏使顶楼潮湿。
• What's to be done with all this stuff in the attic?顶楼上的材料怎么处理？

20 ghetto   

n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区

参考例句：

• Racism and crime still flourish in the ghetto.城市贫民区的种族主义和犯罪仍然十分猖獗。
• I saw that achievement as a possible pattern for the entire ghetto.我把获得的成就看作整个黑人区可以仿效的榜样。

21 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

22 juxtaposition   

n.毗邻，并置，并列

参考例句：

• The juxtaposition of these two remarks was startling.这两句话连在一起使人听了震惊。
• It is the result of the juxtaposition of contrasting colors.这是并列对比色的结果。