At the Intersection of Identities

Paula Vogel’s Indecent

Abstract

The paper analyzes Vogel’s 2015 play Indecent, a work adapted from the American reception history and afterlife of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance. Following a brief introduction of the two plays, the focus is on Vogel’s representation of Jewish and lesbian identities, intertwined with the issue of the social function of theater. The analysis points to the impact of intolerance in the formation of minority identities as a defining element of Vogel’s play, whose major themes include the effect of antisemitism on Jewish identity and Jewish art (particularly the question of “acceptable” and “unacceptable” self-representations), as well as the issue of assimilation and language within the diaspora. The paper also emphasizes how Vogel’s own work emerges as a space of resistance against these processes, allowing Indecent to be read as a symbol of Jewish cultural and queer survival.