As The Odyssey Theatre celebrates its 46th Season, Beth
Hogan and Ron Sossi’s production
of Clifford Odets’ AWAKE AND SING! (coproduced with
Marjie Mautner) reflects all of the professionalism and certainly important
theatre of our times The Odyssey has been known for all these years. Odets’ cast for the 1935 Broadway
show at the Belasco Theatre featured Stella Adler as Bessie Berger and John
Garfield as her son, Ralph.
Sanford Meisner filled a supporting role. These greats were pals with the playwright and imagining the
power of this production is wonderful.
Twenty years
ago Marilyn Fox played the overbearing matriarch Bessie Berger. In the play today, still echoing Odets’
cry for creativity and fairness, she returns to powerfully bring Bessie back to
life. Tour de force is too mild a
term, as Fox and company roar to life and make the eighty year old play as
contemporary as anything we might see today. Odets’ handle on the human condition and even with his
poetry of ancient language, the cast elevates the story straight into our
hearts.
I tried to imagine how this play, mounted in 1935 at the
Belasco Theatre with the likes of Adler and Meisner in the cast, must have
sounded to the theatre audience of the time. A nickel for a haircut. Pennies spent like dimes or more? A dollar was worth about
$17.50 in today’s value. Bringing
home twenty bucks a week would come to $350.00. Almost a living wage?
A nickel for a haircut would have been just shy of a buck. In these days
after the depression, Bessie reminds her family and anyone who will listen that
families are being put out of their homes right and left. Thrift is essential.
Odets’ voice rings brilliantly in every character under
Elina de Santos’ deft direction. Pete
Hickok’s brilliant set is one that David Belasco himself would have applauded.
Every detail is attended to. It is the perfect canvas for this epic story to unfold. A slight glitch in the lighting at rise
is quickly forgotten as the Berger family struggles through their evening meal.
The pecking order is well defined.
Excellent James Morosini as the kid, twenty two year old Ralph, is filled with dreams and angst and love
for the girl he pines for. He speaks for the new generation. He’ll fly to California. He’ll conquer the stars. It is his line that echoes at the final
moment.
The dance of these characters ebbs and flows with
grace. Three acts in just over two
hours rush by flawlessly.
Grandfather, Jacob, Allan Miller, speaks for the past and his love of
Caruso and the idea of loving one another falls to the ground. Bessie’s cruel tirade in Act III shows
the frustration that she has always harbored and brings the dramatic conclusion
to the play. Jacob’s advice to Ralph, however, sticks with him. Awake and Sing!
Beautiful Melissa Paladino’s Hennie is in trouble. It’s telegraphed in subtle ways until
the truth comes out. Again,
imagining the culture in 1935 and how the general population dealt with unwed
pregnancies is a conundrum.
Bessie’s reaction says it all as she connives to quickly find a husband
for her errant daughter. Enter Moe
Axelrod, (David Agranov) who has some dough and knows how to get it. He’s hot for Hennie, but initially, she
will have none of it. Some of the
most beautifully dated lines come from Moe who really loves Hennie. Robert Lesser as the hen
pecked and compliant husband, Myron Berger is mostly guided by our current
phrase: “Happy Wife. Happy Life…” Overbearing and wearing the ‘capitalist black hat’ is
Bessie’s successful brother, Uncle Morty, beautifully captured by Richard
Fancy. Is it a sin to make
your fortune on sweatshop schmatas? His wealth helps support the Bergers.
Bessie treats him like a king. He
flaunts his success and almost succeeds in cheating young Ralph as the play winds
to a close.
Enter the unsuspecting husband and ‘father’ of Hennie’s
baby, Sam (Gary Patent). English
is not a first language for Sam and his bubble is about to be burst. Oy!
All together, the excellent direction of de Santos with a
professional cast hitting every mark and playing in a natural style at once
with what must have been the style of Odets’ era, it all comes down to doing
the right thing. A Jewish family
must stick together as best they can to survive. Jacob’s advice to young Ralph in Act One reverberates in the
dénouement. He must find his own
way and Awake and Sing!
Kim DeShazo’s costumes and excellent tech credits envelop
the audience and enhance the words.
This message of sadness and hope emerges, ringing as true today as it
must have rung all those eighty years ago.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
AWAKE AND SING by
Clifford Odets
ODYSSEY THEATRE
2055 S. Sepulveda
Los Angeles, CA 90025
Through JANUARY 31, 2016
Tickets and Information:
310 477 2055 ext. 2
www.odysseytheatre.com
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