Behind Every Great Man . . .

Our actors in Indecent have the fascinating challenge of playing real-life people. This 1906 photo shows Sholem Asch (played by Adam Brading and Tyler Haugen) and his wife Matilda Spiro (Madzhe, played by Christina Uyeno and Ann Brandman); they had married three years earlier. 1906 is the year Indecent begins, as we first meet them in Warsaw. Madzhe, the daughter of a respected Hebrew teacher and poet, had revolutionary siblings committed to socialist revolution; her brother was hanged for sedition, and her sister was sent to Siberia for running weapons (Siegel, The Controversial Sholem Asch p. 34). It was Madzhe's family's wealth and stability that allowed Asch to pursue his career as a writer.