God of Vengeance

When Sholom Asch's Yiddish play God of Vengeance was first performed in English on Broadway in 1923, the entire cast was fined $200 apiece for lewd behavior. Though Asch's 1907 drama constantly delighted Yiddish audiences, a brothel-based love scene between a whore and the brothel owner's daughter irked Broadway sensibilities beyond propriety.

While no 1999 audience would balk at the sight of two women fondling, Caraid O'Brien's new translation of Asch's play for Todo Con Nada captures the dangerous energy and downtrodden gloom of a seedy Jewish whorehouse a century ago. The gritty dialogue punctuating with a liberal smattering of Yiddishisms, the spirit of Asch's compelling story about a brothel owner's pledge to become respectable, sets Show World, the production's former go-go bar venue, aflame.

Years of pimping have driven Yankl Shapshovitch (Mark Greenfield) to desperation. While business runs smoothly in the brothel downstairs, he keeps his chaste daughter Rivkeleh (Vered Hankin) shut away, determined to marry her off to a nice Jewish boy and gain respectability. But dreams of white weddings couldn't be further from the virgin's mind, as her illicit love for the prostitute Mankeh (Elizabeth Gondek) threatens to destroy her father's naive hopes.

Aaron Beall's insightful production connects Asch's coarse world and our own, using unlikely but curiously apt excerpts from Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, a modern example of a spent society. Whlie several ungainly scene changes interrupt the flow of the action, the essential pulse of the story rages on through the eloquent performances. Imbuing their prostitutes with precise individuality, and their pimps with likeable vice, the actors are constantly vibrant. This Yiddish Lower Depths may be a little rough around the edges, but it sinks its teeth in and rarely lets go.