Broadway’s biggest scandals now revolve around sky-high ticket prices and stars forgetting their lines. Oh, for the days when the vice squad stepped in!
That’s exactly what happened in 1923 to “God of Vengeance,” about the sensational love between the daughter of a Jewish brothel owner and one of her father’s prostitutes.
“At the end of the first act, they have a passionate embrace and kiss,” says David Mandelbaum, artistic director of the New Yiddish Rep, which is presenting a staged reading in Yiddish with English supertitles of Sholem Asch’s 1906 play this weekend.
“What can I say?” Mandelbaum adds, with a laugh. “It’s hot.”
As if this hadn’t been enough, the angry father in “Vengeance” — the jumping-off point for Paula Vogel’s recent off-Broadway show, “Indecent” — desecrates his Torah scroll.
It was all too much for Broadway. On March 6, 1923, detectives turned up at West 42nd Street’s Apollo Theatre after the second of the play’s three acts and informed the 12 actors, the show’s manager and its producer, Harry Weinberger, that they had been indicted for “the crime of presenting an obscene, indecent, immoral and impure theatrical production.”
The next day, The Post reported that “when they had furnished bail bonds, they hurried away to prepare for a matinee performance this afternoon.” Indeed, the show went on until April 14, and judgment fell a few weeks later.
Among the play’s chief enemies was Rabbi Joseph Silverman of Temple Emanu-El. “The establishment Jewish community was outraged,” Mandelbaum says. “This was driven by the usual fear: ‘Is it going to be bad for the Jews?’”
In May 1923, a jury condemned the play and The Post noted that “the conviction was the first for a drama of this type.” Apparently, the last time the vice squad had intervened was for a burlesque show, “Orange Blossoms,” which had a saucy scene involving a couple on their wedding night.
Judge John McIntyre was quoted as saying “the time had come when the drama must be purified.” Yet he was lenient, fining Weinberger and director-actor Rudolf Schildkraut $200 each while releasing the others on suspended sentences. Eventually, an appeals court overturned the conviction — and “God of Vengeance” still stands, 110 years later.
New Yiddish Rep will read “God of Vengeance” at the 14th Street Y, 344 E. 14th St., Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m.; tickets are $18.