INDECENT Reviews

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 2:28am

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 6:05pm

Since the performance will be starting soon, I thought I'd give this thread a bump.

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 7:01pm

Time Out (Adam Feldman) is a rave (5 stars):

"The very notion of live theater contains an intimation of its future: dead theater. Now the play is before us, moving and breathing along with its audience; then it is done, and banished to the shadow realm of memory. This is true not just of a single performance but also of the run of a production—even The Phantom of the Opera will one day throw in the mask—and, writ larger, of entire theater worlds. Sometimes such worlds age and fade with time; sometimes, as with Yiddish theater, they are violently erased.

Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman’s gorgeous Indecent is written on the palimpsest of that erasure. "

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/indecent-1

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 7:06pm

Matthew Murray is positive:

"Riccardo Hernandez's stark set, an imposing wooden platform with its own layers of meaning, further contribute to this, as do Christopher Akerlind's unforgiving lighting, Matt Hubbs's piercing sound, and David Dorfman's haunting choreography; the costumes, mostly rags done just right, are by Emily Rebholz. The actors, who also include Mimi Lieber and Steven Rattazzi, are each masterful, ornamentation free and correctly sized for conveying small feelings in a Broadway-size house. (They have, in other words, had no trouble scaling upward since Indecent premiered Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre almost a year ago.) Particularly affecting is Topol, both as our meta-guide and the man who's moved to action by Sholem's words, but Nelis is also notably excellent at suggesting an extinct performance vernacular that doesn't junk what we find digestible in 2017."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/world/index.html

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 7:26pm

NJ.com is mostly positive:

"If "Indecent" doesn't land as forceful a dramatic punch as it might have, that's probably because we never fully invest in any of the characters -- of the more than forty figures in the script, only "The God of Vengeance" author Sholem Asch (Max Gordon Moore) and the show's meek but devoted stage manager (Richard Topol) have full arcs.

Then again, that may be Vogel's point, that transcendent theater takes on a character, identity and history all its own. The play's the thing -- and "Indecent" is a very good one indeed."

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/04/indecent_broadway_review_paula_vogel_play.html

[GreasedLightning]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 7:34pm

A positive review from Murray? He must be drunk. 

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 8:13pm

Jeremy Gerard:
http://deadline.com/2017/04/broadway-review-indecent-1202071471/

Chris Jones:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/broadway/sc-indecent-broadway-review-ent-0418-20170418-column.html

Updated On: 4/18/17 at 08:13 PM

[Sauja]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 9:35pm

That Deadline review is a RAVE. Thrilled to see it. I thought this show was astonishing. Possibly the best thing I've seen this season (though I still have some catching up to do!)

 

i hope oped this little show can find an audience. It deserves it.

[Sauja]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 9:35pm

That Deadline review is a RAVE. Thrilled to see it. I thought this show was astonishing. Possibly the best thing I've seen this season (though I still have some catching up to do!)

 

i hope oped this little show can find an audience. It deserves it.

[@z5]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 9:41pm

Jeffrey you're slacking on the links....I can't find them without you!!!

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 9:48pm

Murray is harder to please than others, but he certainly does give positive reviews. And truthfully, it's not like his reviews have ever mattered much anyway. 

This has been on my list for a while, and the reviews make it really sound fascinating. I hope to catch it soon!

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 10:09pm

NYTimes is out. Brantley calls it "decent."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/theater/indecent-review-paula-vogel-broadway.html

[ANewBrainn]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 10:44pm

BroadwayConcierge said: "NYTimes is out. Brantley calls it "decent."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/theater/indecent-review-paula-vogel-broadway.html

"

I'd call this review mostly positive.  I feel like Brantley was using the word "decent" to mean human decency not as a one word summation of his feelings on the play.

[Mike66]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 10:58pm

I've read the Brantley twice.  It reads not only very "positive" but also very "important."

And yes, "decent" as in "decency" not as in "meh"

The only thing lacking is the "critic's choice" check-mark. 

Lots of really good pull-quotes, if the producers want them.

 

[ANewBrainn]

Posted: 4/18/17 at 11:12pm

Mike66 said: "I've read the Brantley twice.  It reads not only very "positive" but also very "important."

And yes, "decent" as in "decency" not as in "meh"

The only thing lacking is the "critic's choice" check-mark. 

Lots of really good pull-quotes, if the producers want them."

 

To me it honestly almost seems like an oversight not getting critic's choice.  It's a very positive review

 

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 4/19/17 at 9:08am

And yet they remembered to put that Choice seal on Disaster!

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 4/19/17 at 9:27am

Charles would never have forgotten to put a Critic's Pick stamp on something with music recycled from his club days. 

 

I'm sure it's intentionally not a "pick," but am glad it is mostly a positive review. Sadly less so than most of the others. 

[neonlightsxo]

Posted: 4/19/17 at 9:29am

The Brantley review is very mixed, IMO. More like begrudgingly positive. He has a lot of complaints and he only is marginally positive because he thinks it's important. Not sure how anyone could read that as a critics pick review. He's like "it's okay."

[Kad]

Posted: 4/19/17 at 9:51am

Yeah, Brantley's review definitely reads like he is pulling his punches because of the show's subject. 

 

Jesse Green, however, does not pull his punches in his mixed (skewing negative) review.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/theater-a-holocaust-meta-history-in-paula-vogels-indecent.html

[Polka Dot2]

Posted: 4/19/17 at 5:35pm

I saw it this afternoon and LOVED it. Stunning play. I got the front row rush seats. The stage is a bit high, so I was looking up the whole time, but overall amazing seats for $30. Would definitely do it again. :)

[GilmoreGirlO2]

Posted: 4/22/17 at 11:31am

I saw this last night and am still overwhelmed this morning. What an absolutely beautiful piece of theatre. Its story, how it's told, the staging, the music, and the cast all make for an extremely moving night.

I've seen many of the new plays this year (and enjoyed many of them, particularly "Oslo", but for me this is the stand out.

I would definitely urge anyone who is on the fence about getting a ticket to go.

Also, just a note about seating: I got my seats on TDF and we were seated first row orchestra on house right (BB) and the view was great.

[chanel]

Posted: 4/24/17 at 11:09am

Sometimes feels like something earnest that's good for you, but beautifully staged. Scroll down to "Indecent Exposure."

http://www.out.com/michael-musto/2017/4/24/bianca-del-rio-id-let-trump-touch-my-psy

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 5/19/17 at 8:56am

After seeing this last night, it's a shame to see the slightly dismissive tone of a few of these reviews, since I was moved in a way that I haven't been in quite some time. Indecent is a gorgeous production of a powerful play. It is, as tiresome as this phrase already is just a few months into the Trump presidency, startling in its urgency and relevance. One moment, in particular, caught me by surprise and immediately made me start crying. 

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Content

Sholem is having an argument with his wife after having returned from Europe and witnessed the persecution of the Jews, and he reveals that the American State Department has done nothing in response to his pleas. In recent months, it's been reported that there are concentration camps for gay men in Chechnya, and it was just reported that gay men trying to escape were denied asylum by the United States. 

 

Click Here To Toggle Spoiler Conte

As moved as I was, the play isn't grim or overly heavy. Towards the beginning, it's quite fun to watch the company come together and tell the story of this play. You could compare it to Shuffle Along in a sense, although I think this play is much more successful. Shuffle Along was focused on the individual players, which resulted in a busy and unfocused play. In Indecent, the focus is trained much more on the broader themes (anti-semitism, homophobia, the power of the theatre) and it was much more successful as a result. 

Vogel's text is great, but Rebecca Taichman's direction is what makes the play soar. It's theatrical in the best sense, with the movement of the seven players working beautifully with the music and musicians. She manages the difficult feat of keeping the world of the play spinning while never losing the audience as the narrative travels years and countries. The last scene (without giving its effect away) also genuinely took my breath away. It's impressive work, and ideally she should win a Tony for her efforts. 

The cast is a tight ensemble, and all of them have lovely moments over the course of the evening. I was especially taken by Adina Verson as several naive and young women, and Richard Topol as the evening's de facto narrator, Lemml. Topol is the only actor who plays only one character throughout the evening and by the end of the play functions as the beating heart of the whole evening. 

I can't stress enough that this play should be seen. Shows like this are rarely seen on Broadway, and while it seems like Indecent won't turn into a runaway hit, I'm so happy it's made the trip uptown. In a way, it mirrors the journey of God of Vegeance, which feels like a lovely full circle moment for this forgotten slice of Jewish, queer, and theatrical history. 

[EthelMae]

Posted: 5/22/17 at 2:21pm

Saw Indecent yesterday matinee. While I liked it a lot, there was a sense of disappointment. My partner was less enthused than I.

We both had read about the play before we went and I was fascinated by the subject matter. It's always thrilling to find out something that happened in history that, for some reason, you've never encountered (see the film Hidden Figures). But I felt knowing the story before I came in, (and there is an article in this month's Playbill about the play plus an insert card from the author if you didn't) was enough. I didn't learn or feel anything new by seeing the play. And other than the "kiss" between the two women in the play within the play, I didn't think we learned much about exactly why this play is so important. Why wasn't the production of the play attacked downtown? Simply because Broadway has a spotlight? 

I enjoyed the staging and the actors were all fine. But this play is about facts and ideas so the actors can do so much when there aren't any characters fleshed out to play. I was on the side in the Orchestra and I noticed they had supertitles you could read on the sides of the stage as well as the back wall. I don't know if this is new but it helped a great deal because my seat was on the side enough to have the back wall cut off a little as well as lighting units sticking out blocking the back wall partially.

I wanted to feel all the passionate responses I read here but it wasn't there for me. But I do recommend seeing this play. It is not something that comes along often on Broadway.

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/31/17 at 5:09pm

Saw it this afternoon. So glad I went. Was a bit choked up as I left.

It deserved the nominations. Wonderful acting and the staging is beautiful.