Indecent is a play about another play that was so powerful that it was muffled by the powers-that-be, first by reworking its text, then by arresting its actors.

When Polish author Sholem Asch wrote The God of Vengeance in 1906, would-be producers in Warsaw were scandalized by its subject matter: a Jewish brothel, a lesbian relationship, and a Torah hurled on the floor. Asch sold it in Berlin instead and it wound up taking Europe by storm before crossing the ocean in 1920 to be shown in New York.

In Indecent, first produced in 2015, playwright Paula Vogel centers most of the drama on the acclaim and later controversy that swirled around The God of Vengeance, while giving the audience out-of-order glimpses of the Yiddish play itself.

Vogel’s script includes a burlesque in German, songs in Yiddish, and speeches in French, Spanish, and Chinese. But under Eric Rosen’s brilliant direction in Arena Stage’s latest production, nothing is lost in translation. Projected text above the action gives important context and language cues; a strum of a violin alerts the audience to lapses in time. The actors speak in fluent English to signify Yiddish parts of Indecent and accented English to signify their struggle with the language after immigrating to America. The effect is seamless comprehension for the audience without compromising the point: the challenge of bringing an old language to a new land.

Ben Cherry is moving as Lemml, the unlikely stage manager who takes charge of The God of Vengeance with the grace and precision of an orchestra conductor. The other actors play several different roles throughout Indecent. Susan Lynskey and Emily Shackelford are stand-outs as Halina and Chana, respectively, the actresses that play lovers Manka and Rifkele. Their transcendent chemistry is a bright breath in an otherwise depressing plotline.

Indecent builds its tension when, in 1923, The God of Vengeance makes it onto Broadway— but at a price. The play was edited ruthlessly, the signature scene of Manka and Rifkele kissing in a rainstorm cut. The producer, Harry Weinberger, reasoned that Broadway audiences would be shocked enough by a play with prostitutes—the lesbians were too much.

“Did the playwright agree to cutting the most beautiful love scene he will ever write?” Halina asks.

Asch had signed off, but only because his English hadn’t been good enough to read the sanitized adaptation. Indecent portrays Jews as the most vigilant censors. A rabbi tells his congregation that every time he hears a headline of crime or gross negligence he thinks, “Please don’t let them be Jewish.” Driven by his fear of anti-Semitism, the rabbi ironically ends up hamstringing one of the greatest Jewish plays of the time. He instigates the police raid on The God of Vengeance that resulted in Weinberger and 12 cast members being convicted.

Asch rejected this fear. The program for Indecent reprints a letter he wrote in 1923, in response to what he calls the “wrong interpretation” of The God of Vengeance at the Apollo.

“Jews do not need to clear themselves before any one,” he wrote. “They are as good and as bad as any race… I think that the apologetic writer, who tries to place Jews in a false, even though white light, does them more harm than good in the eyes of the Gentiles.”

It is unclear from Indecent whether the Holocaust later broke Asch’s faith in humanity or caused him to question his conviction that audiences would see The God of Vengeance as a human play as well as a Jewish one. What is clear is that Vogel insists on both. Indecent is a deeply Jewish story, embedded with Jewish language, music, dance, history, fears. But when the rainstorm scene finally arrives, it’s just two bodies soaking, pulsing on stage.

Indecent runs at Arena Stage through December 30. Tickets $56-115. Runtime approximately one hour 45 minutes with no intermission.