This week, Jared reviews three plays on view in the Greater Boston area.
“Indecent,” presented by Huntington Theatre Company through May 25.
A rare remounting of the Tony-winning Broadway production, “Indecent” is now playing at the Huntington Theatre Company. Written by Paula Vogel and directed by Rebecca Taichman, who won a Tony for the play, "Indecent" charts the course of Yiddish playwright Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance.” First produced in 1907 and featuring the first staged kiss between women, European audiences adored the love story. But when the Yiddish play hit Broadway in 1923 amid a fevered pitch of anti-Semitism, the entire production was shut down and its creators were charged with obscenity.
“It's really not about the censorship of the play,” says Vogel. “It's really not just all of the multiple love stories. It's … how do we describe or catch a moment in time when we as a country — all of our neighbors, all of our friends, all of our family — are in danger?”
Jared describes the production as “Gorgeous in style and form. Indecent is a beautiful rendering of the purity of human spirit.”
“Becoming Dr. Ruth,” presented by New Repertory Theatre through May 19.
Discover the surprising life and eternal spirit of famed sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer in “Becoming Dr. Ruth.” Presented on the mainstage at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, this intimate one-woman performance brings audiences into Dr. Ruth’s living room, where actress Anne O’Sullivan captures the German-born therapist’s unlikely story as well as her self-described joie de vivre.
“She opened America's heart about sex,” says O’Sullivan about Dr. Ruth. “She understood how important it is for everyone. How important sexuality is to the human experience.”
Jared describes "Becoming Dr. Ruth" as “a dynamic deep dive into a woman who had every reason to give up on life, but instead taught so many how to live it.”
“Pacific Overtures,” presented by Lyric Stage Company through June 16.
The Lyric Stage Company wraps up its cycle of the major works by Stephen Sondheim with “Pacific Overtures.” This layered yet minimal production tells the story of Commodore Matthew Perry’s forced opening of trade relations with an isolationist Japan in 1853. Addressing the complexity of Sondheim’s storytelling, artistic director Spiro Veloudos says there isn’t a clear-cut protagonist or antagonist in this production.
“It's not a human being, it's not a person,” says Veloudos. “Japanese culture is the protagonist, and the antagonist is Western culture.”
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