Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays [Paperback]

Clifford Odets (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 1994

Book jacket/back: Clifford Odets is considered the most gifted American social protest dramatist of the thirties and certainly one of America's great playwrights. Odets was born in Philadelphia in 1906 and raised in the Bronx, New York. After joining the Group Theatre in 1931, he wrote his six best and most famous plays, included in this volume.

Product Details

• Paperback: 418 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 14, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802132200
• ISBN-13: 978-0802132208
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #53,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine representation of seminal American Drama, April 19, 2001

By 

J. Remington "John Remington" (Adams, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays (Paperback)

There are many aspects of Odets' work that have not particularly aged well. Frankly because he consciously was writing to reflect contemporary (for the 1930's) American Society with an extreme and blatant Leftist leaning, much of his dialouge, characterization and politicising has dated. Yet these selections still contain powerful dramatic representations of life that illuminate a segment of society that literally was ignored by the media of the time.

It is arguable, but I think it's true that without Odets' dramatization of the plight of the common man, we wouldn't have witnessed the (admittidly more poetic and timeless) works of Miller, Inge and Williams. Odets, perhaps more than any other playwright of his time, placed "the little guy" in the center of the tragic form. As one reads these plays, one becomes aware that the rules are beginning to break right before the reader's eyes.

Odets' plays are, if one is able to check their political hat at the door, fine works of dramtic lit that prove most actable while also allowing a range of staging possibilities. His narratives are clean and direct in the sense that they give the characters a series of clear objectives and actions as well as conflicts to confront. This collection is a most welcome and necessary addition to any theatre library.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars AWAKE AND SING, September 17, 2003

By 

Scorpio "Christopher R" (U.K.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays (Paperback)

After joining the American Communist Party in 1934, Odets used a taxi drivers' strike from that year as the inspiration for his first play, Waiting for Lefty . The play is an agit-prop that borrows heavily from Communist ideology and promotes collective action and unionization as the only means to tip the scales of power away from big business and toward the worker. The characters in the play grow aware of themselves as the oppressed class as opposed to the powerful ruling class, and when this "class consciousness" becomes too burdensome, they see no other option but to strike.
This dialectic play gives the audience an insight into the ills of American society and encourages them to change their reality. It was written and performed at a time when the legend of the self-made man held no more waters. The country was still struggling with the aftershocks of the stock market crash of 1929. Unemployment rate reached its highest peak in the United States and employers were reducing wages drastically. As depicted in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio: From the Thirties (written in the 1930s, published in 1974), workers were treated brutally by their employers. As Steinbeck showed, workers had to bond together and fight for their meagre wages which dropped even more because of the intense competition. In this fight, unionization and strikes were their only weapons.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm no sensitive plant-what's the answer?, April 6, 2005

By 

Aco - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waiting for Lefty and Other Plays (Paperback)

"...So in the end nothing is real. Nothing is left but our memory of life. Not as it is...as it might have been...."
So says Leo, soft natured, burnt out, over worked, unappreciated, hang dog Odetian father in Paradise Lost. But such sentiment could come from any of these six plays and not be out of place.
In these six plays, featuring some of the most brilliant and emotional American playwriting ever, Clifford Odets hammered and chiseled circumstances of urban American life in the 1930's. Full of hard edged people who demand it of others, and naive people who refuse to be brought down by the prevailing winds, Odets creates a world that may seem dated and bygone. But the turmoil and the choices are neither.
In Waiting for Lefty taxi cab drivers must contend with horrendous working conditions, including violence and intimidation from managment if they strike. Scenes from worker meetings, home life between a husband and wife on the edge, and between two scientists politicing towards blacklisting and espionage.
In Awake and Sing and Paradise Lost families living in small cramped apartments must strive for peace and simple comforts while income is barely enough, their children, desperate for a better life, risk their lives through crime, or take up with sordid, cynical and compromised people. Homes are taken away, suicides and paralysis grip them.
In Till the Day I Die, two brothers go from being tight excited comrades, rebelling against the Fascist Nazi encrouchment, to being torn apart and suspicious after one of them is captured, tortured, abused, compromised and released.
In Golden Boy, the sweet heart of a promising violinist turns grey and aggressive when he takes up boxing, letting success, hatred for his family and fear of failure lead him to his own destruction.
In Rocket to the Moon a dentist falls for his young secretary, who dreams of a better life, beyond a hard scrabble existence as three men vie for her affections.
All the writing is incredible. A few noteworthy quotes:
From Till the Day I Die:
Ernst: Yes, peace! in the cell there-I know I stayed alive because I knew my comrades were with me in the same pain and chaos. Yes, I know that till the day I die there is no peace for an honest worker in the whole world.
Tilly: Till the day I die there is steady work to do. Let us hope we will both live to see strange and wonderful things. Perhaps we will die before them. Our children will see it then. Ours!

Ernst: These guns are complicated pieces of machinery. Our Germans make them like works of art. Tilly, Carl, our agony is real. But we live in the joy of a great coming people! The animal kingdom is past. Day must follow the night. Now we are ready: we have been selected in a terrible fight, but soon all the desolate places of the world must flourish with human genius. Brothers will live in the societs of the world! yes, a world of security and freedom is waiting for all mankind! Do your work, comrades.

From Paradise Lost:
Kewpie: A sleeping clam at the bottom of the ocean, but I'll wake you up. I'm through with the little wars: no more hacking, making a pound in a good day. Like old man Pike says, every man for himself nowadays, and when you're in the jungle you look out for the wild life. I put on my Chinese good luck ring and I'm out to get mine. You're on the first stop!

Libby: Hon, you're mussing me up again.
Ben: Happy?
Libby: Sure, every day's Saturday.
Ben: What to do think of her?
Kewpie: She's a juicy baby, all right.
Ben: Four stars!
Kewpie: But dumb-nothing between the acts!

Clara: In fifty years we will lay in the rain."Who's this?" they'll say. "A couple of old fools!"
Leo: This can't happen forever! Nothing stands still in life! Pike is right! Backwards or forwards, and even backwards is going ahead.
Clara: For God's sake, do yourself a personal favor and listen to me! What will we do, now?
Leo: We'll go on living.

From Golden Boy:
Siggie: That's a positive personality!
Tokio: That's Eddie Fuseli.
Siggie: Momma-mia! No wonder i smelled gun powder! Pop, that's a paradox in human behavior: he shoots you for a nickel-then for fifty bucks he sends you flowers!

Rakes, hopeless romantics, Communist rebels, diligent work horse Americans, woman of ill repute, hard, tough as nails mothers, looking out for their naive and love-dumb kids...Like all great writers Odets language is original, and stands the test of time.