Revival of Awake and Sing

My eyes stung with tears reading the review of the revival of Awake and Sing that just opened here in New York at the Belasco. This was Odets’ biggest hit – the story of the rambunctious bickering Berger family in Depression-era New York. If you want to get a small glimpse of the quality of the writing – here’s an excerpt. Odets’ work has always meant a great deal to me – not just because of its rightful place in American theatrical history, but because of how it has helped shape who I am – as a reader, an actress, whatever. The story of Clifford Odets is a truly American story (this is the year of his centennial – so he’s everywhere right now), and his plays are truly great American plays – difficult to do now – the language can seem ‘corny’ to our more cynical or pessimistic ears … but it’s poetry. Odets was a poet.

The cast of this revival could not be better. The great Ben Gazzara is in it. Lauren Ambrose (from 6 Feet Under) and Mark Ruffalo (awesome) are making their Broadway debuts – and both have gotten great reviews. Ruffalo as the wise-cracking Moe Axelrod – a classic Odets character: He’s bitter, cynical, he’s been treated roughly by the world – so he treats the world roughly in turn. He has some of the best lines in the play. He’s in love with Hennie (played by Ambrose) but for a guy like Moe, love doesn’t come easy. He treats her like shit because he can’t deal with his feelings. And when his emotions do come flooding out of him, you worry for him. You worry that he won’t be able to pay such a price. Ruffalo should be perfect for this part and I am really glad to hear that he is just going for it, and doing it well.

It sounds like the play has been over-designed, from the review. Sigh. STOP doing that, directors. It happened with Rabbit Hole that I just saw too (with Mitchell). Wonderful well-made play, top-notch acting by all involved (the unbelievable Tyne Daly, Cynthia Nixon was fanTAStic, and seeing John Slattery onstage, as opposed to on television, gave me a great appreciation of just how good an actor he really is – KUDOS) – but the production had this revolving set, which – I don’t know – it was gorgeous, and very well-done – but I thought it was too much. For the material. The material did not demand a massive revolving set. It’s a kitchen-sink drama (yes, an upper-class kitchen sink drama – but still – it’s a story about a couple trying to deal wtih the death of their child). No need for a swirling Les Miz set. It bothers me. It shows a lack of trust in the material.

But still, to read paragraphs like this just gives me a thrill of happiness:

All of Mr. Sher’s skilled performers manage to locate the dreaming centers of their characters, buried beneath layers of political sloganeering, everyday gripes or street slang. And even when the focus blurs, Odets’s zesty dialogue, in which jazzy period colloquialisms are slung around like punches at a prizefight, is a joy to hear.

Nobody writes dialogue like Clifford Odets. Nobody. He is so difficult to do. You gotta get into his context, you gotta give up your modern self, you gotta give up your shyness about language – and go for it.

Here’s the end of the review – mentioning the set, as well as the difficulty of the language – but ending on a ringing note of blessing that brought tears to my eyes:

Nor do Mr. Sher and his actors always finesse the more effusively rhetorical passages in the play, which can strike the contemporary ear as corny in their lyricism or forthright idealism. Ralph’s climactic peroration is a case in point. The now-barren stage and a flurry of snow do the work the actor might better be allowed to, infusing this exultant burst of feeling — “I swear to God, I’m one week old!” — with a sense of the provisional, adding a note of poignancy to temper the hokum.

But small infelicities don’t smudge the overall sharpness of this picture of life being lived for all it’s worth, despite the grinding oppressions of subsisting on the knife edge of poverty. The sweep of American history ran roughshod over some of the ideals Odets and other artists championed in the 1930’s.

But ideals are not old newspapers, withering into dust. Even tattered, they endure. And as this moving revival reminds us, the song of human aspiration is always sweet to hear.