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ODETS (oh-DETS)
An
American socialist playwright, screenwriter, and social protester
Common
clues: “Golden Boy” author; Dramatist Clifford;
"Waiting
for Lefty" playwright; American playwright; "Awake and
Sing!" playwright
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
2 times a year
Video:
Waiting
for Lefty
Clifford
Odets (July
18, 1906 – August 18, 1963) was an American socialist
playwright, screenwriter, and social protester.
Odets
was born in Philadelphia of Jewish immigrant parents and raised
in the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high school to pursue
acting. He helped found the Group Theatre, an influential
left-wing theatre company that specialized in experimental
acting. He joined the Communist Party in 1934, although he left
it after eight months.
After
briefly trying acting, Odets decided to become the Group
Theatre's first original playwright. At the urging of Group
co-founder Harold Clurman, he wrote Awake
and Sing! in
1935. Although his first play, it is often considered his
masterpiece. It follows the story of a large Jewish family in New
York, with the conclusion that Marxism is the only way for the
working class to find any dignity.
Mainly
due to misgivings from Group leader Lee Strasberg, Awake
and Sing! was
not produced right away. Odets' first play to actually be
produced was the one-act play Waiting
for Lefty. This
is a series of interconnected scenes depicting workers for a
fictional taxi company. The focus alternates between the drivers'
union meeting and vignettes from their difficult, oppressed
lives. The climax is a defiant call for the union to strike. The
play can be performed in any acting space, including union
meeting halls and on the street. The wild success of this play
brought Odets unexpected fame and fortune. Odets would soon move
to Hollywood to begin writing for the screen as well as the
stage.
These
plays, along with Odets' other major Group Theatre plays of the
1930s, are harsh criticisms of the capitalist class in the Great
Depression. They have been dismissed by some critics as mere
propaganda, but Odets asserted that all of his plays deal with
the human spirit persevering in the face of all opponents,
whether they be the capitalist class or not. In later years,
Odets' plays became more reflective and autobiographical,
although class consciousness was ever in the background.
In
1953, Odets was investigated by Joseph McCarthy and called before
the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He disavowed
his communist affiliations and cooperated by "naming names";
as a result, he did not share the fate of many of his colleagues
who were blacklisted.
Odets'
dramatic style is distinguished by a kind of poetic,
metaphor-laden street talk, by his socialist politics, and by his
way of dropping the audience right into the conflict with little
or no introduction. Often character is more important than plot,
which Odets attributed to the influence of Anton Chekhov. In
general, Odets' political statements show a rather naive view of
Marxism that might be expected in the 1930s; for example, he
often points to the Soviet Union as an example of a perfect
socialist state, not the land of violence and poverty that we now
know it was.
His
first wife was actress Luise Rainer; his second wife was actress
Bette Grayson, and he also had a relationship with actress
Frances Farmer. He died of cancer at the age of 57 in 1963.
This
article is licensed under the GNU
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It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Clifford Odets".
95
Tokyo immigrant to the U.S.
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