Indecent

Content Warning: This section discusses antisemitism, anti-gay bias, and sexual violence.

In 1920, Lemml stands in “an impossibly long line” in Ellis Island (40). Sholem calls out to him and tells him that the curtain will soon rise on The God of Vengeance at the Bowery Theater. Lemml wonders at Sholem’s ability to get him through immigration when so many people are being sent back. Sholem cannot wait to show Lemml America. The troupe sings a Yiddish song about assimilating to American culture. The God of Vengeance, performed in Yiddish, opens in 1921 to thunderous applause.

A year later in 1922, Dorothee and Reina rehearse for an English run of The God of Vengeance. They argue, switching back and forth between Yiddish and English. In Yiddish, Dorothee insists that Reina needs to speak English more often, even when they are alone together. The English run opens in less than a week, and Reina’s English is still heavily accented. They run the lines in English, but Reina struggles with the pronunciation. She wants to call Dorothee by her original name, Deine, and resents her own English name, Ruth. In English, Dorothee insists that she is “the same woman [Reina] love[s] as Deine” (45).