I believe in the vast potentialities of mankind. But I see everywhere a wide disparity between what they can be and what they are. That is what I want to say in writing. I want to say the genius of the human race is mongrelized; I want to find out how mankind can be helped out of the animal kingdom into the clear sweet air. ---Clifford Odets ---Letter to John Mason Brown, 1935; cited from Margaret Brenman-Gibson Clifford Odets, American Playwright: The Years from 1906 to 1940 (New York: Atheneum, 1981) p. 337. Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and director. Odets was born in Philadelphia to Louis Odets (born Gorodetsky) and Pearl Geisinger, Russian- and Romanian-Jewish immigrants, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high school after two years to become an actor. In 1931, he became a founding member of the Group Theatre, a highly influential New York theatre company that utilized an acting technique new to the United States. This technique was based on the system devised by the Russian actor and director Constantin Stanislavski. It was further developed by Group Theatre director Lee Strasberg and became known as The Method or Method Acting. Odets eventually became the Groups primary playwright. Odets has been looked on by many as an icon of the American theatre. According to Arthur Miller, An Odets play was awaited like news hot off the press, as though through him we would know what to think of ourselves and our prospects. According to Marian Seldes, Paddy Chayefsky, who felt competitive with Odets, ... told an interviewer, There isnt a writer of my generation, especially a New York writer, who doesnt owe his very breath–his entire attitude toward theatre–to Odets. Golden Boy was made into a 1939 film and became the basis for a 1964 musical of the same name. The Flowering Peach became the basis for the 1970 Broadway musical Two by Two, which starred Danny Kaye. Odetss screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success became the basis for the 2002 musical of the same name. Lincoln Center celebrated the centennial of Odetss birth with their 2006 production of Awake and Sing!, directed by Bartlett Sher. It won that years Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and sparked a revival of interest in Odetss work. Another centennial production, Rocket to the Moon, directed by Daniel Fish, was produced by Long Wharf Theater. Golden Boy, also produced by Lincoln Center with Bartlett Sher again directing, opened on December 5, 2012 to enthusiastic reviews, subsequently garnering 8 Tony Award nominations. John Lahr declared, In this distinguished, almost symphonic production, Sher and Lincoln Center have done a great thing: they have put Odets finally and forever in the pantheon, where he belongs. Odetss early, more left-wing plays, such as Waiting for Lefty, Awake and Sing!, and Paradise Lost, have enjoyed numerous revivals since the 2008 economic crash. The Roundabout Theatre Company presented the first revival of Odetss 1949 play, The Big Knife, in the Spring of 2013 at the American Airlines Theatre in New York, with Doug Hughes directing Bobby Cannavale in the lead role of Charlie Castle. The role was originated by Odetss former Group Theatre colleague, John Garfield. The National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) mounted a highly acclaimed production of Awake and Sing! in September 2013 with an Asian cast. Performed in a small downtown theatre space in New Yorks Soho area, the limited run played to sold out houses. According to New York Times Reviewer Anita Gates, the production easily makes the point that ethnicity is transcended by the humanity of frightened, imperfect people facing unpleasant realities. Joel and Ethan Coens film Barton Fink contains a number of indirect visual and historical references to Odetss personal appearance, background and career. But, according to the Coen brothers, the film is not meant to be biographical in relation to Odets. A minor character in the 1982 film Diner speaks only lines from Odets screenplay for Sweet Smell of Success. The Odets character was played by Jeffrey DeMunn in the film Frances, and by John Heard in the 1983 biography, Will There Be A Morning?, both about Frances Farmer. Odetss name is mentioned in an episode of the NBC series Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, The Wrap Party. The episodes subplot dealt with The Hollywood Ten. Odets was the subject of a psycho-biography by psychoanalyst Margaret Brenman-Gibson, wife of playwright William Gibson: Clifford Odets – American Playwright – The Years from 1906–1940. It was one component of an umbrella project undertaken by Brenman-Gibson on the subject of creativity. The biography was intended to be a three-volume work, with the second and third volumes to cover the final twenty-three years of Odetss life. Brenman-Gibson died in 2004, leaving the project unfinished. A new, full-length biography of Odets is currently in progress with the cooperation of the Odets Estate. The book, to be published by Random House Knopf, is expected to be completed in late 2016. Apart from Brenman-Gibsons work, six critical biographies have appeared by the following authors: R. Baird Shuman (1962); Edward Murray (1968); Michael Mendelsohn (1969); Gerald Weales (1971); Harold Cantor (1978); and Christopher J. Herr (2003). Clifford Odets is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 23:49:42 +0000
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